ERIN FOX: “They’re saying I can do my job in 5 1/2 hours and I’m saying, ‘No, I can’t.’” IMAGE: darryl James

For one month of nearly full-time work as a Portland Public Schools cafeteria worker, Erin Fox earned $379—the equivalent of roughly $5 an hour.

Fox’s take-home pay would have been $917. But Portland Public Schools lopped nearly 60 percent from Fox’s September paycheck to pay for her health care.

Portland school district cafeteria workers must work a minimum of six hours a day to receive full-time benefits. Otherwise, a greater share of the benefits burden falls to workers.

And administrators say Fox, the only cafeteria worker at the Harriet Tubman Leadership Academy for Young Women in North Portland, should be able to complete her day’s work in 5.5 hours—not 6 hours.

That 30-minute difference is crucial for Fox, whose job must cover a monthly rent of $995 and all the other expenses of caring for two young boys and a disabled, unemployed husband.

As food-service workers enter their sixth month of negotiations with the district on a contract that expired in June (the same one governing the district’s custodians; see “Cleaning Up,” WW, Oct. 17, 2007), the union representing the 188 food-service employees say workers are getting squeezed in more ways than one.

The district has offered them a 1 percent raise, which amounts to a pay cut when compared with the 3 percent inflation rate. To lower other costs, the district has also reduced the number of scheduled hours on the books. This helps the district lower health-care expenses, decrease the amount of accrued sick leave and personal time given to cafeteria workers, and minimize the number of hours workers are paid on school holidays.

“That’s outrageous,” says Rep. Mitch Greenlick (D-Portland), one of seven state legislators to voice their support for food-service workers to the Portland School Board. “To cut off health insurance to your lowest-paid employees is unconscionable.”

Representatives of the district say school cafeterias aren’t allowed to turn a profit under federal law, and the district does not draw money from its general fund to pay for food service. That places a double bind on the district’s food-service budget.

During the last school year, 122 food-service workers logged more than 9,700 hours over the number of hours on their schedules, according to Service Employees International Union Local 503 records. Workers were paid for that time, but the district saved thousands of dollars in paid leave and personal time because those hours didn’t count toward the workers’ benefits.

“We do not reduce hours as a cost-saving measure,” says Kristy Obbink, the district’s director of nutrition services. She says there’s less work.

Food-service workers earn between $9.62 and $13.96 an hour in the Portland district. In the Beaverton School District, they earn between $9.77 and $14.75. In David Douglas, the wages run between $11.28 and $18.61.

Fox, who serves breakfast and lunch to 160 students while school is in session, says she regularly works just over six hours a day, though her schedule reflects the 5.5-hour target.

That gap means Fox, whose children have health insurance through the Oregon Health Plan, doesn’t qualify for full health-insurance benefits from the school district. She earns $12.74 an hour.

Currently, the district bases its decisions on who gets full benefits on the number of scheduled hours in an employee’s workweek, not the number of actual hours worked. “Even though I’m working more than 30 hours a week, I don’t get credit for 30 hours,” Fox says. “I get credit for 27.5.”

During the last school year, one food-service worker at Hosford Middle School worked 165 hours more than was on her schedule, according to union records. Yet, at the start of this school year, the district decided to cut her hours, meaning she is no longer eligible for the health benefits she received before.

The burden of picking up the extra work has fallen to Hosford’s head cafeteria worker, Micci Scrivner, a 23-year employee of the district’s nutrition department.

“As long as they’ve taken her insurance away, they’re happy,” Scrivner says of the district. “But she’s not.”

Says Rep. Tina Kotek, another of the seven state lawmakers to back the workers: “There’s a bigger picture here that the school district is missing.”