On Friday, March 28, 2025, Ed Thorndike ’89 and Karen Kaffen-Polascik, the owners of WesWings and Red & Black Cafe, announced the finalization of a labor agreement between their on-campus restaurants and the union UniteHere217.
“Today we are proud to announce a historic agreement with the dining workers union UniteHere217,” Thorndike and Kaffen-Polascik wrote in a news release shared via their restaurants’ website.
WesWings and Red & Black Cafe, which were founded in 1991 and 2003, respectively, have long been staples of the University community, hiring dozens of students per semester and regularly feeding hundreds more. While the restaurants are independently owned, open to the public, and unaffiliated with Bon Appétit, which is the culinary provider for Usdan, Summerfields, and Weshop, they operate within the University’s meal plan and require a contract with the University.
Their previous contract with the University, and its associated costs, proved to be a significant roadblock in negotiating a union agreement.
“Our contract with Wesleyan has generally remained the same since 2007,” Thorndike wrote in an email to The Argus. “Both businesses are not subsidized or paid by the University, nor receive guarantees against losses. After a series of several meetings over the course of the entire school year, we reached a new agreement with Wesleyan…[reducing] the fees we pay to Wesleyan by about 45%.”
This new agreement with the University decreased the owners’ overhead costs, allowing them more flexibility in negotiations. This resulted in the successful Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with UniteHere217.
Thorndike clarified that while many of the benefits enumerated in the agreement existed prior to the negotiations, the CBA will significantly clarify the benefits workers receive.
“While there are a few new policies that relate to seniority and probationary periods, there were not a lot of new policies that didn’t already exist,” Thorndike wrote. “Time off, sick time, [and] retirement all existed before but now are codified in the agreement. Disciplinary procedures and grievance protocols are now specifically spelled out.”
One of the biggest changes concerned healthcare premiums. While WesWings and Red & Black Cafe previously covered 50% of employees’ health insurance premiums, the new agreement requires the restaurants to cover them in full.
“The union plan gives us a much more affordable solution due to their size,” Thorndike wrote. “We used to provide 100% coverage when we opened in the early [’90s,] but the cost of healthcare over the past several decades made that difficult to continue.”
Additionally, the CBA will set the basis for all future contracts, making negotiations and considerations with regard to wages and benefits simpler in the future.
“As a student worker, I’m really looking forward to getting a pay increase,” Lucia Glatz ’27, who works at Red & Black, said. “But the bigger impact will be felt by my coworkers and managers who aren’t students; I’m excited to see how their benefits will be improved.”
Thorndike and Kaffen-Polascik described the initial challenges with negotiations that both parties worked together to repair.
“What began two years ago as a tumultuous confrontation between our companies and the union and divided our staff, has grown into a productive relationship built on mutual respect and understanding,” Thorndike and Kaffen-Polascik wrote. “Poor communication in the early days led to our not understanding the union’s positions or intentions and the union not understanding ours.”
Thorndike said that early in negotiations, representatives from UniteHere217 did not fully understand the terms of the restaurants’ contract with the University.
“This was a crucial misunderstanding at the start of the unionization push,” he wrote. “[After renegotiating with the University], we were able to quickly present a financial package to the union that was widely approved and moved us to the next phase of non financial issues.”
Both owners said that despite initial hiccups, the CBA was conceptualized and agreed upon in good faith.
“Since September of 2023, both sides have worked diligently and honestly to achieve what is in the best interests of the employees, the companies and our customers,” they wrote. “We believed then and do now that by bringing all the parties together and truly understanding all sides of the situation, we could achieve a result that benefits our staff, our companies, our customers and the university dining program.”
Thorndike emphasized that operations at WesWings and Red & Black will remain unchanged.
“We have the same staff with better pay and benefits,” he wrote. “While we as owners will have a little more paperwork, day-to-day it’s the same business.”
Miles Pinsof-Berlowitz can be reached at mpinsofberlo@wesleyan.edu.
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