Norfolk State Dining Workers Petition Thompson Hospitality, Seek Union Recognition

Marcella Greene came to work as a server in Norfolk State University's dining hall and quickly noticed something was wrong. "So much miscommunication," she said, and "no training" for workers trying to do their jobs. Last week, she and her colleagues did something about it.

Dining hall employees at NSU presented a formal petition to Thompson Hospitality on March 26, announcing their intent to unionize and asking the company to stay neutral during the organizing process. The workers are organizing with UNITE HERE Local 23, a regional hospitality union that has already brought more than 1,500 campus dining workers across Virginia into its membership.

The petition cites four core grievances: inadequate training, erratic scheduling, poor communication and wages that organizers say have failed to keep pace with cost of living. To illustrate that last point, organizers highlighted a worker with 30 years on the job earning roughly $19 an hour, a figure they argue shows how contractor-run campus dining can suppress wages across long careers.

Sequoia Ali, an organizer with UNITE HERE Local 23, said the drive is about more than money. Ali said the movement would bring improved pay and respect to campus dining jobs, pointing to prior wins at other Virginia institutions where workers secured wage increases and scheduling protections through collective bargaining.

The NSU petition did not arrive in isolation. Dining staff at Virginia State University, another historically Black university in the state, filed a similar petition around the same time, part of what organizers describe as a sustained regional push targeting contractor-run dining operations. Thompson Hospitality and companies like it manage food service across multiple campuses under contract, a model that unions argue produces inconsistent pay and benefits even among workers doing identical jobs at neighboring schools.

The petition opens a formal legal process. Thompson Hospitality will need to decide whether to voluntarily recognize the union or contest the drive, potentially triggering a National Labor Relations Board election. If workers win recognition, contract negotiations would put scheduling practices, training requirements and wages directly on the bargaining table, reshaping the labor costs and staffing models Thompson relies on across its campus accounts.

Whether the company acknowledges the petition voluntarily or forces a formal election will determine how quickly any of that changes for the workers clocking in at NSU's dining hall.