Negotiating team wraps up OSCA rent contract

Nutrition, service management and new meal plan provoke heated discussion

The Oberlin Student Co-operative Association (OSCA) rent contract negotiating team is nearly finished. After nearly nine months of work, the contract is almost done.

"It's been a frustrating process," OSCA president senior Jenn Carter said. "It's been really slow."

"I think it's been tougher than people expected it to be," Co-op Area Co-ordinator Tracy Murry said.

The contract has been slowly hammered out by a 15 member team consisting of OSCA members and Student Life and Services staff. OSCA's rent contract with the College is renegotiated every three years. The negotiation process varies slightly each time around; this year, meetings began earlier in the year in hopes of producing a detailed document in a fairly short time.

Although there are a few unresolved issues, the contract is now largely complete. Members of the team uniformly praised their product and predicted it would be approved by OSCA membership. OSCA will vote on the contract next week.

"It's a great contract," team member Assistant Director of Residential Life and Services Michele Gross said.

"Ninety percent of it wasn't very contentious," said OSCA treasurer junior Dan Spalding. "But there were definitely a few key issues."

The issues which threatened to upset the negotiations included service management, nutrition and the new meal plan.

In February, the College came to the table with a new plan. The rent contract was illegal, the College representatives said, and ought to be replaced with a service management plan. Marriot currently operates under a service management agreement.

"In effect, we wouldn't be a co-op anymore," Spalding said.

OSCA's non-profit status would be seriously jeopardized by the College's proposal.

"Nobody thinks the College is trying to shut down OSCA," Spalding said. "But they wanted more control. Residential life didn't understannd OSCA."

The College expressed concern that OSCA members weren't getting enough to eat. Unbeknownst to OSCA, the College had fielded a barrage of complaints from parents of hungry co-opers. The College attempted to rectify the situation by writing a solution into the contract. According to the College's proposal, Campus Dining Services (CDS) workers would inspect co-ops. If co-ops repeatedly failed inspections, CDS cooks would cook for OSCA.

"We were repulsed," Spalding said. "There is no decision more personal and political than what we eat. To come in and cook for us is obscene."

After OSCA members suggested the emphasis should be placed on training, the College came back with another proposal.

"They kept the language exactly the same," Spalding said. "We did two things. We hired a lawyer, which we've never done before, and we started talking to our membership."

A meeting was arranged before the weekly negotiation meeting to discuss the growing problem.

"We explained the agreement was completely unacceptable to us," Spalding said. "We caucused for five minutes, and when we came back, the College said we think you're being unreasonable, you're being emotional, but okay. It was the first compromise."

Co-op infractions will result only in further training. Head cooks will work closely with CDS workers.

According to Spalding, the College tried to impose a freeze on OSCA membership in order to accommodate CDS eaters with flex dollars. Under the new meal plan, if a student were to use all her flex dollars in the first week of a month and then switch to OSCA, her flex dollars could not be tracked. The College would then sustain an enormous loss of money. College representatives suggested OSCA activate a membership freeze after one month.

"Fundamentally, that's not how membership works," Spalding said. "It wasn't our problem. They'd told us the new meal plan wouldn't affect us, and that wasn't true."

The issue has not yet been resolved.

The College recently introduced language limiting co-opers to eating their one on-board meal a week in Dascomb.

The proposal garnered little support at Fairchild last night. The current contract was brought to every co-op for discussion.

"If everybody eats in one place Sunday night, it will be very crowded," said one member of Fairchild.

"We should be able to eat in the Snack Bar; that's the only place I ever want to eat," sophomore Libby Welsh said. "We don't restrict where CDS people eat, and I don't think they should limit where we'll eat."

General feelings on the contract were mixed to negative.

"It's not perfect," OSCA College Liason senior Susanna Kittridge said. "There are still some things being worked out."

Spalding said, "The College wants OSCA, but they want it as a bullet point in the viewbook. If they understood it, they'd look at it more kindly."

The negotiations will be finished Monday.

"I'm not saying there haven't been frustrations, but we've ended up in a place where people feel pretty good," Associate Dean of Students Bill Stackman said.

Pizza, anyone?: A co-oper prepares for Pizza Night in Harkness co-op. Harkness is one of the many co-ops affected by OSCA�s rent contract negotiations. (photo by Pauline Shapiro)