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DiscussWorkers at the Libe Café in Olin Library voiced discontent with the new mandate to wear hats in a meeting with Cornell Dining administrators Friday. Objections to the policy, which student employees at the café began fighting last year, coincide with similar concerns vocalized by employees at the Green Dragon Café.
The workers at Libe Café, who are almost all students, felt wearing hats or visors were “cumbersome,” “unnecessary,” “ruined employees’ morale” and detracted from the café’s social atmosphere.
“It’s really a happy working environment we all like,” said Michael Shores ’10, a student supervisor at Libe Café. “This is just the one thing that really bothers us.”
Cornell Dining initially instituted the hat policy last year, but employees successfully petitioned it and it was revoked. This fall, Cornell Dining brought back the policy as a safety provision to prevent workers’ hair from contaminating food. The Tompkins County Health Department, however, requires a “head barrier” only in food preparation. Employees at Libe Café said that they do not make items onsite and therefore should not be required to wear a hat or visor.
“I tend to touch my hair more when wearing the hat, which seems more unsanitary than before,” café employee Don Sim ’11 said.
Gail Finan ’69, director of Cornell Dining and Retail Services, originallyscheduled the meeting with administrators for Saturday morning. Since this early hour would likely have drawn a low-turnout from student employees, the workers pushed the meeting back to Friday afternoon.
More than 20 of Libe Café’s 36 student employees attended the meeting. Many of them said that when the line grows as people come to grab a coffee between classes, they do not want to have to worry about their hats.
The workers also felt the policy hurts relationships with customers, many of whom are their classmates, professors and friends. Like at the Green Dragon, students hold most of the posts at Libe Café. Many regular customers have commented that the hats are “silly” and make the place seem “like a dining hall.” One student employee was told she looked like a “lunch lady.”
“We don’t need to put up a wall that says ‘I’m part of Cornell Dining rather than the kid in your Comm. class,’” student employee and Sun columnist Jeff Katz ’10 said.
Employees successfully reversed a “pants-only” rule last year, and some students said they would not have applied for a job at Libe if they had known they would have to wear a hat. They voiced the concern that the policy would lead to other uniform changes.
Karen Ross, a representative from the United Auto Workers union and employee at the Atrium Café, also attended the meeting, seeking to appease Cornell Dining’s concerns that workers from other campus eateries would also demand a repeal of the hat policy. She said that if Cornell Dining reverses the hat policy at Libe Café and Green Dragon, the union would not call for the hat rule to be lifted across all establishments.
“Student workers are an integral part to dining at Cornell,” Ross said. “The last thing we want is to alienate [them].”
Finan stressed the importance of food safety and service, emphasizing Cornell Dining’s receptiveness to employee concerns.
“We are taking into consideration the situation [at Libe Café] and Green Dragon, and we are listening to everyone’s complaints,” Finan said. “This is not about [taking] sides.”
She asked employees whether there had been any positive changes over the last few years. The workers said that hygiene had improved at the café, but not because of the hats. Recent training had reinforced food-safety guidelines like not re-steaming milk and routinely sanitizing countertops and equipment. Many students said that in general the meeting went well.
“[Finan] gave everyone an opportunity to speak,” Shores said. “We understand that managing dining is difficult and time consuming.”
Finan said that Cornell Dining would reach a decision about the hat policy for both the Green Dragon Café and Libe Café by the end of the week.