Student workers felt threatened to speak up for fear of losing their jobs

Former student workers Francisco Arambula and Miguel Menjivar came forward to highlight growing concerns they have experienced while working at the Brahma Cafe after I began looking into the practices that happen behind the scenes at the Cafe.
This investigation began after student worker Madeline Pammit mentioned that she was working more than the maximum 25 hours a week to cover gaps due to staffing issues.
“We can’t afford to keep a lot of people around because we can’t afford to pay them,” Pammit said. “But that balance is reaching a point that where it is not fair to students. Especially me because I work like 50 hours a week and I only get paid for a 25 of them. I’m not really supposed to talk about that though.”

Grigor Hogikyan, college store supervisor, is in charge of hiring. He stated that the staffing issues rely on the students and their schedules.

“We can only hire student workers that are full time,” Hogikyan said. “I am having some difficulties in the morning between 9:30 a.m.-12 p.m. because most of my workers are in class and that is why we have the shortages. We can only hire student workers that have 12 units and some of them cannot maintain the units with the work. We are trying to get some permanent people to staff the cafe so it is more reliable and there will be better shifts.”

Arambula and Menjivar both said that they felt threatened that they were going to lose their positions if they were to take their complaints about being overworked higher or made too much of a stink about it.

Menjivar said that according to The Student/Unclassified Employee Handbook, “A student worker can be fired at any time by any permanent employee for any reason,” and to him, that meant he had to keep his mouth shut.

“That is not right,” Menjivar said. “At one point I had four bosses. All of them were telling me different things that were contradicting one another. Who was I supposed to listen to? So I listened to all four of them, or they could have fired me and I needed to keep my job.”

Arambula, who was recently working at the cafe during this investigation before being supposedly terminated due to budget cuts, said that he worked well over the minimum 25 hours a week that he was allowed and was forced to work non-paid overtime hours.

“The shift leaders are being worked 30-50 hours a week.”

“The shift leaders are being worked 30-50 hours a week,” Arambula said. “I hadn’t complained to anyone because I was afraid. I was afraid that I’d get my contract terminated, that I’d get retaliation, that I wouldn’t be able to go to Pierce. Pierce is so convenient for me, I am afraid they won’t let me keep going here.”

Menjivar explained how Hogikyan’s system worked for student workers who are going over their hours per his request.

“That depends as he doesn’t always keep track of the appropriate hours,” Menjivar said. “At one point Grigor owed me over 90 hours. How he pays you back is he gives you a week off or any time that you need off in which you get paid during those absences. The point is, if you are a student worker, you add up as many hours as you can so that you are not working during the spring or the winter so that he can still be paying you. Every student worker learned how to work Grigor and they learned to scam the system because of his practices. It isn’t right but that is the way things go.”

When asked, Hogikyan admitted that there is a system in place for students who go over the maximum 25 hours in a workweek, but tried to limit the amount to a per week basis.

“Sometimes student workers go over hours because of rush,” Hogikyan said. “When they go over I make sure to keep track so that they get the hours in the next week. I make sure that they don’t work those extra hours in the following week. I try not to let it happen too many times.”

Arambula feels that it is the appropriate moment to confront this head on and that he isn’t doing this for himself, but for all of the other workers out there being mistreated.

“I feel like it is time,” Arambula said. “Especially now in this political climate that we are living in for the people who have been working their asses off for a little bit of money and have been treated like shit — the disposables of this society — it is time for somebody from that group to say something.

“Not just at this place, but also at all of the other places that work their employees like this. It’s my hope that someone will be like that student worker at Pierce got the whole school district to change their policies and now the workers are being treated fairly. I am tired of seeing people getting taken advantage of like this.

Arambula knew that there would be backlash after speaking out, but decided to go forward with what he had to say despite the consequences.

“Enough is enough, I don’t care anymore. I am tired of getting mistreated. I am tired of being silent, it’s time that these people get put in their place and they start acting right. I am not only doing this for students to be treated fairly, but I am doing it because I love that place. It’s my home.”

Menjivar says he has meant to do this for a long time.

“I wanted to type up everything and send it to the district,” Menjivar said. “Not to Larry, not to the chancellor, not to anyone at the school. To the district, to whoever wanted to read it. If you are going to use student workers, treat them right and pay them right. Give them rights.”

Arambula said he has tried to bring this matter up with Larry Kraus, associate vice president, but he has done nothing to remedy the situation.

“I talked to HR and I have talked to Larry once,” Arambula said. “Larry told me that Grigor was going through some personal issues and that everything was going to get better. Nothing got better. Nobody listens. Nobody cares.”

Menjivar said that he tried to bring this situation outside of the school to hopefully make a change.

“Two years ago I tried to go to the union, but none of my co-workers that I had would back me up,” Menjivar said. “So it was just men standing up and I couldn’t do it on my own.”

When talking about her supervisor, Pammit mentioned how Hogikyan is mostly out of the picture when it comes to the Cafe.

“One thing I’ve noticed is that my boss is very hands-off,” Pammit said. “I’m pretty much running the show and I have been trying to get him to hire more people so that the workload is a little bit more distributed. Some of my coworkers are trying to cut their hours.”

Arambula substantiates Pammit’s claim that Hogikyan is not very hands-on when it comes to taking priority in his work.

“When he is not there I try to run things to keep the Cafe going, but student workers cannot be in charge of other student workers,” Arambula said. “That is hard because our boss is never there or in his office. Who is supposed to run the Cafe when he is not there? He’s not there 90 percent of the time. So I have to, and if it is not done, he comes and yells at me.”

Contrary to what the student workers say, Hogikyan said that when he can’t be found in his office, he can be found in many of the locations that he supervises.

“I am not in the office all of the time,” Hogikyan said. “I might be in the Cafe or in CopyTech if I am needed, but it is a combination. I have some office work, although I might be in the Cafe working the register or doing some work there. I am the opening person, which includes opening all of these different departments and ensuring that all the personnel is there, we open on time and that everything goes smooth in the morning as well as the day too.”

Another shocking piece of information that the former student workers shared is that Hogikyan is having student workers, who are categorized as unclassified workers, do parts of his classified work.

According to The Student/Unclassified Employee handbook, “Student employees are assigned to assist faculty and/or staff and shall not do the work of faculty and/or staff,” and “Unclassified positions are exempt from classified service.”

According to Pammit, she is in charge of drawing up the shifts for student workers which is considered classified work.

“One of the new responsibilities I have taken on is scheduling people,” Pammit said. “I use the cash register reports to see when it is our most profitable hours and schedule people off of the amount that we make.”

Arambula was shocked to see that one of his coworkers was having access to his personal classified information.

“Maddie texted me the other day because she was scheduling the Cafe workers,” Arambula said. “I was really horrified that she was texting me about my hours. I was like why is she looking at my hours? Why are Grigor and Maddie debating what schedule do I get? Nothing against Maddie, but this is the stuff that Grigor does.”

Other classified work Hogikyan allows students to touch are product invoices and makes them accountable for the inventory, both being tasks that belong to Hogikyan according to Menjivar.

“Grigor calls whichever student worker and they arrange the invoices by date, by month, oldest to newest and then they make a copy of them and then they take the copy to someone in accounting,” Menjivar said. “And for the inventory, I have worked that, Francisco has worked that and now Maddie is working it. All student workers again doing another classified job.”

Hogikyan said that he does allow student workers to do classified work, but only every often, contrary to what the workers had to say.

“Sometimes I have student workers help me with the inventory,” Hogikyan said. “For the invoices, I work them, but I have a student worker and she helps me organize them, but only under my supervision. I make the schedule, but sometimes I have a student worker text other workers to see if they are available to take a shift. Inventory is basically just counting the stuff that we have for the cafe.”

One of the major complaints about working at the Cafe is having to deal with late paychecks due to the lackadaisical filing of the timesheets from their supervisor. All of the student workers interviewed for this story said that Hogikyan would continuously miss the deadlines, including former student worker Yonathan Pretzantzin.

According to Pretzantzin he sometimes had to bypass Hogikyan to ensure that he and the other student workers got paid on time.

“A couple of times we didn’t get paid because the paperwork wasn’t submitted on time and so there was a delay,” Pretzantzin said. “We would usually have to wait until the next paycheck, but since everyone else was in the same boat, I would be the first one to always tell him that I needed the money, that I had to pay bills. So instead of waiting until the last day of the month, it would be the following week that we would get paid. I would sometimes go to human resources and payroll to make it happen.”

According to Hogikyan, paychecks are late to the students because they fail to follow proper procedures.

“Students have to fill in their timesheets in order to get paid on time,” Hogikyan said. “Sometimes the student does not fill in their timesheet, but I cannot wait so that I can turn it in on time. It is up to the student workers to track their hours. Other times they are changing their schedules and not letting me know, so district sends me an email and say that they are getting dropped from the program.”

Arambula feels that if he gets transferred from the Cafe to another position on campus that things will most likely be the same for him.

“They still own me, there is still a deed for my soul and so anyone can use me,“ Arambula said. “I have worked in the mailroom which is another classified job that they allowed me to be in there with full access to professor mail. If I wanted to, I could have done some serious damage. Did I get paid to do that classified job? No. The person that does that job probably makes $22 an hour, but they are saving a lot of money using student workers like me.”

Arambula, speaking about his future as a student worker, didn’t see it as very bright.

“Am I probably going to lose my job after this? Probably,” Arambula said. “Am I going to have to look for a shittier job after this? Probably. However, the next student workers that will come to Pierce after I leave will get the treatment that me, Maddie, and Miguel deserved.”

Arambula hopes to see the cafe continue operations for the foreseeable future.

“People have come back to say, I met my husband here, I met my wife here,” Arambula said. “One guy said, ‘10 years ago I took my girlfriend here, we fell in love here and we are just coming to see if it is still here.’ Others just come back to see if it is still there because they remember it. I want to keep on that legacy.”

Pammit feels differently than her ex-coworker does about the Cafe.

“You know, I am kinda actually hoping that it fails and it shuts down,” Pammit said. “A terrible thing I know. I love working here, but instead of relying on a really experienced set of employees, Grigor is only relying on me and one other person and it is a lot harder for us.”

Arambula was terminated Thursday, March 23 after talking about his experiences and his supervisor, Hogikyan, who got wind of this investigation. According to The CalWORKs Work Study Application, Arambula will not be eligible for re-employment as a student worker until the start of the next school year.