Teamsters File for Union Vote at RISD Cafeteria

Something is happening in RISD's kitchens.

On July 28th, the National Labor Relations Board opened case 01-RC-391619 — a representation petition covering 62 workers at the Rhode Island School of Design's cafeteria in Providence. The petitioner is International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 251, the East Providence–based union that represents more than 6,300 workers across Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. The union's legal representative on the filing is Marc Gursky of Gursky Wiens and Shanley in Warwick. The case is assigned to NLRB Region 01 in Boston, and its status is open.

That's a dry sentence for what is, in practice, the opening move in a union election.

The proposed bargaining unit is broad. According to the NLRB case record, it covers all full-time and regular part-time lead Dining Experience Associates, dining associates, vending leads, dishwashers, cooks, lead cooks, line cooks and lead line cooks, stewards, cashiers, kitchen assistants and baking assistants. Excluded are clerical and confidential employees, managers, guards, professional employees and supervisors. In other words, this isn't one job title testing the water. It's the whole back and front of house.

Here's why that number — 62 — should ring a bell for anyone who followed RISD three years ago.

To understand this moment you have to go back to December 17, 2021, when RISD received notice that Teamsters Local 251 intended to hold an election among custodians, grounds and caretaking staff, movers and group leaders. Contract talks began in June 2022 and dragged. On March 23, 2023, workers walked out for a one-day unfair labor practice strike; the union had filed charges alleging RISD failed to pay a general wage increase and changed starting rates without bargaining. On April 3rd, they walked again — this time open-ended. More than 600 students, faculty and Providence residents turned out in support.

The unit in that fight was 62 custodians, groundskeepers and movers. Coincidence in headcount, maybe. But the parallel is hard to miss.

That strike ended after two weeks with a tentative agreement on April 17, 2023, ratified the next day. Teamsters Local 251 says the six-year deal delivered wage increases averaging 33 percent, including a 22 percent bump effective July 2023, plus wage retroactivity to October 2022, longevity bonuses and benefits improvements. Workers who had been averaging $16.74 an hour, and in at least one case $15.65 after a decade on the job, came out of it with a contract running through June 30, 2028.

So the cafeteria petition lands at an institution where the same union, in living memory, went to the mat and won.

RISD is not a stranger to organized labor. Its human resources office lists current collective bargaining agreements with the full-time Faculty Association, the Museum Guards Association and Teamsters Local 251. The school, founded in 1877, enrolled roughly 2,500 students in fall 2024 and reported a $465.5 million endowment in 2025. Its dining operation runs five venues on campus, with part-time and federal work-study positions open to students — a wrinkle that could matter if there's any argument over who belongs in the voting unit.

And that's the next thing to watch. Under NLRB procedure, a representation petition can be filed after signatures from at least 30 percent of the proposed unit. If the parties agree on the scope of the unit and the mechanics, an election gets scheduled. If they don't, Region 01 holds a pre-election hearing to sort it out. The Board's 2023 rule changes moved those hearings up — they now generally open about 10 days sooner than under the prior rule. So the calendar here is short.

What we don't have yet is the human part of the story. No public statement from RISD on the filing has surfaced, and none from Local 251 either. Nobody has laid out what the cafeteria workers are asking for, what they earn now, or how the vote is likely to break. Cafeteria workers in Rhode Island average about $22 an hour, or $46,679 a year, roughly 1 percent below the national figure — but whether RISD's dining staff sit above or below that line isn't public.

A filing is not an election, and an election is not a contract. Three years ago at this same school, the distance between those three things was measured in picket lines.