As parents and students continue to adjust to life amind the novel coronavirus pandemic, we’ve seen various perspectives about how schools should function with both the mental and physical health of all involved in consideration. Is it better for students to be hybrid, remote, or fully in-person? What about teachers? Teachers who are also parents? Other workers in the school system tend to get less discussion, though they’re absolutely just as important—think custodians, bus drivers, and cafeteria workers.

Interestingly, school cafeterias have struggled during the pandemic, too. As Daily Kos has covered in the past, a number of school districts have gone to surprising lengths to keep students fed amid supply chain and delivery issues; sometimes food simply doesn’t come, for example, or the wrong food comes, or it’s unusable. But students still need to be fed, especially those who rely on free or reduced lunch. Having enough cafeteria workers available to prepare and serve food has also been a challenge, leading parents in some districts to volunteer to keep lunchtimes moving. The Biden administration issued a recommendation to help solve this particular worker shortage, and it’s one progressives can easily get behind: schools should hire cafeteria workers as full-time employees and get them union protections, as covered by Business Insider.  

We know Biden has said it’s a goal of his to not only be the most pro-union president but to lead the most pro-union administration in the nation’s history. Awesome goals. Putting money where his mouth is, so to speak, is a recent recommendation that the Department of Agriculture figures out how cafeteria workers can become full-time. If you’re wondering why these workers aren’t already full-time, it’s because these jobs are generally categorized as “short-hour” roles, which means they don’t receive benefits of full-time employees, like paid time off, paid sick time, or health insurance.

The report suggests that if the Department of Agriculture uses its authority as such, “subgrantees and their contractors [can] retain a stable and high-quality workforce of full-time employees.” If people have full-time employment, including fair benefits and insurance, they’re perhaps likelier to stay in their roles or apply for openings, to begin with. This is true at any time, but especially during a public health crisis. In terms of union power, it’s also an excellent move that benefits all workers.

Even in the school microcosm, it’s true teachers have different requirements, but the labor cafeteria workers do is just as valuable and integral to running a fair and accessible education system; they deserve labor protections and benefits, too. (This argument can, and should be, extended to folks like janitors, coaches, and so on, too.)

Jackie Pfaff, a cafeteria worker at the Shenendehowa High School in New York state, spoke to local outlet Spectrum News 1 back in November about her experience in the role of over a decade. She stressed that people really need to love working with young people to survive the job (which makes sense), and that in her opinion, the job is great for a stay at home parent, because “you can still et your kids on the bus in the morning and you come home and your kid gets off the bus and you’re there.”

This perspective adds another dimension to why it’s so valuable to have these roles paid fairly and protected—we can’t expect parents to be superstars, and if folks want (or need) to work outside of the home and can’t afford childcare or rely on outside help, we have to make jobs that are available actually sustainable in the long-term, which includes fair compensation and benefits. 

In speaking to WBUR in December, Koby Levin, a reporter who focuses on inequality in schools, discussed the worker shortage impacting schools as a national issue, saying in part: “Folks who are doing really essential work in schools could easily make more doing a job that is frankly easier, and less critical to our society.” This, in addition to potential COVID-19 exposure risks, is an important framing when it comes to making sure we pay and protect workers who fill these valuable roles well—it’s almost certain to help fill staffing gaps, yes, but it’s also the only ethical thing to do. 

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