In 2022, Brown faced two major labor disputes. The first organized by computer science teaching assistants and the second led by Brown dining hall workers. In an open letter to the CS department and University administration, the CS TAs described “distressing and exhausting” working conditions and unfair pay. Citing similar issues, Brown dining hall staff members called for higher wages and increased staffing. Eventually, both labor groups successfully reached an agreement with the University.
The TAs, however, received more support from both the students and University relative to dining hall workers as a result of their cultural and financial leverage. In short: if you are a labor group at Brown, it pays to be an elite one.
While the TAs and the administration continued to engage in contentious negotiations after their one-year interim agreement expired, the outcome was largely favorable for them. The TAs received an increased say in departmental proceedings, more clearly defined roles and hour restrictions that most professors dutifully followed. The Brown dining hall workers, on the other hand, continued to suffer from understaffing, faulty machinery and increasingly expensive parking fees that negated a substantial part of their pay raise.
While TAs and dining hall workers both deserved better treatment, TAs were not the more urgent case. After all, applications for computer science TA positions would not be competitive if their working conditions were truly abysmal. Regardless, being a computer science TA at an Ivy League university is a privilege. Students gain valuable teaching and coding experience and receive a strong resume boost. While the pay raise was surely helpful for TAs, most were likely not financially dependent on their wages, given that the median family income of a Brown student was $204,000 in 2017. And even for those who need the money, this reliance is likely temporary — computer science graduates from Brown have lucrative job prospects, often ending up at high-paying (and, ironically, aggressively anti-union) companies like Meta, Amazon and Google.
In stark contrast, the dining hall workers’ livelihoods likely depend on their jobs, which do not offer the same upward mobility. Moreover, their work is physically and mentally exhausting, requiring them to stand for hours on end, cooking, serving and cleaning up after hungry and sometimes impatient college students.
Despite these high stakes, the labor struggle of dining hall workers was not met with the same enthusiasm. While there were strong expressions of support in 2021, the student response in 2022 was lackluster, perhaps overshadowed by the more visible computer science TA dispute. Even the relatively well-attended protest that took place in late 2024 was largely composed of local Providence laborers and labor leaders — most students are probably unaware it happened. As a result, these workers were left in a relatively more vulnerable position, lacking both the widespread campus backing and the symbolic capital and institutional leverage that helped the TAs have their demands heard.
This is not to say these struggles are in direct competition, but energy and attention are limited and the more pressing cause was clearly that of the dining hall workers. Yet the response of the student body did not seem to reflect this truth. The computer science TA union galvanized the school: pro-TA union rallies drew strong support, hundreds of students joined the union and endorsed its mission and its Instagram account amassed nearly 800 followers. This widespread student backing pressured the University to not only meet the TAs’ demands during negotiations but also to uphold its commitments afterward.
The attention disparity is unfair but not surprising. The TAs speak the cultural and institutional language of the University. Their demands were framed in terms that resonated with the administration and student body, signaling that their struggle was not only about wages or working conditions but also about aligning with the broader values of the institution. For instance, their push to secure dedicated diversity, equity and inclusion staff for the department addressed a real concern, but, at the same time, reinforced their status as insiders, attuned to the ideological priorities of elite academia. The dining hall workers’ struggle, however, was centered on material conditions, such as low wages, grueling work and job security, that lacked the symbolic status needed to mobilize support.
There were also financial reasons for why the University prioritized the TAs over the dining hall workers. These students, who are on track for high-paying careers, are prospective future donors that the University wants to keep satisfied. Additionally, because many of these TAs were financially secure, they could quit at any time and bring the heavily TA-dependent computer science department to a standstill. Dining hall workers, however, could not abruptly quit, as they are dependent on their jobs for day-to-day income. Interestingly, one reason the University may have addressed some of the dining hall workers’ concerns, such as outdated machinery, may be to ensure the quality of campus dining—an amenity that, ironically, is meant to attract students like the TAs themselves.
As a computer science TA, I appreciated the higher pay and better hours. But I would have been willing to work mostly for the experience or even academic credit, as some TAs do. The improved conditions were not life-changing. For Brown dining hall workers, however, similar improvements would have meant far more, as they support families with their wages. While helping both groups would have been ideal, I find it ironic that the labor group that received more recognition and support was that of Ivy League software engineers, not the actual employees working in the dining hall.
Ben Aizenberg ’26 can be reached at benjamin_aizenberg@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
