RE-INSTATE ROLO: “We’re good. We’re fighting. I’m going to come back foo.”

As a union leader, Rolando (Rolo) Araiza always knew that he had a target on his back for organizing with his coworkers in Pomona College’s dining halls. 

Since Araiza was put on suspension and then fired for menial attendance issues on Jan. 29, hundreds of Araiza’s coworkers, students and community members have petitioned, rallied, delegated and fought for Araiza’s reinstatement. Now, after working for Pomona since he was 15 ½ years-old, Araiza was targeted by Pomona dining hall management and fired. 

Araiza has been a shop steward since Pomona workers first won their contract in 2014. For over a decade, Araiza has been a volunteer representative of the union, enforcing their contract with Pomona, sitting in as witnesses in meetings with management and helping organize other local unionizing efforts around the Inland Empire. 

In a sit-down interview with Undercurrents, Araiza recounted his journey working at Pomona dining halls, joining the underground campaign to unionize and what needs to come next in the fight to bring him back. After the past month of numerous meetings with management, delegations and rallies for his reinstatement, Araiza feels confident that he’ll be back with his community soon. 

“I’ve been working here since I was 15 and a half.”

Araiza’s relationship with Pomona stretches far beyond his years as a union leader. Rolo began working at the college when he was just 15 and a half. 

“I’ve been working at the college since I’ve been 15 and a half, I had to get a worker’s permit from [high] school,” Araiza said. 

His stepdad, who also worked at Pomona, helped him get the job, but Araiza explained that work had already been a part of his life for years. 

“I’ve been working since I was like 10, 11 years old,” Araiza said. “My mom couldn’t even give me a dollar to buy stuff at the store, so she told me I could go help a lady at the swap meet on the weekends and she’d pay me.” 

From there, Araiza recounted how he moved between small jobs before eventually starting at Pomona during high school. 

“After my first paycheck I was like, ‘Man, forget football,’” Araiza said with a laugh, describing how the job quickly became long-term work. “I started part-time in 2005,” Araiza said. “But the college doesn’t recognize you until you become full-time. I got hired full-time in 2008.”

“The college has been after me for a very long time.”

Before he was fired, Araiza had witnessed the worst of Pomona’s union busting in the past two decades. As one of the original dining hall workers to lead and form the union, Araiza was present when Pomona ran an immigration status check and fired 17 undocumented workers during the campaign to unionize. Araiza fought these firings and numerous intimidation campaigns until the union won recognition in 2014.

Because of this, Araiza said he had already sensed what was coming when he was suspended and later called into a meeting with Human Resources. “I knew it was coming,” he said. As a shop steward and outspoken union leader, Araiza said workers involved in organizing often face heightened scrutiny. 

“Outspoken people, they get targeted a lot,” he said. “Whether they pick on you for attendance or not… they pick and choose.”

Although the college cited a “no call, no show” as the reason for his termination, Araiza said the decision reflects a broader pattern of retaliation against union leaders. “The college has been after me for a very long time,” he said. “They’re very anti-union. 

“How do I tell my family?”

Araiza said the hardest part of being fired was not losing the job itself, but feeling like he had let people in his life down. He described the anxiety he felt having to tell his family and friends about the news of his firing. 

Araiza said he struggled most with telling his wife. “I didn’t know how to tell my wife,” he said. But when he finally did, she reminded him that the risks of organizing had always been there. “She told me, ‘We already knew this was going to happen one day or another. It just happened now.’”

Araiza continuously emphasized the critical role his wife has played in supporting him throughout the past few months. 

“She [Araiza’s wife] was like, ‘I was more scared that you weren’t gonna be here.’ And she’s like ‘don’t let them win, they wanna see you like that, they wanna see you crying,” Araiza recounted while chuckling. “That’s not who you are. And I was like foo, you’re right huh? Like, dang right foo.”

The firing has not changed Araiza’s commitment to organizing with his coworkers. “Now I know why they really fired me,” he said. “And we’re not going to stop fighting.”

“We’re good. We’re fighting.”

Despite the termination, Araiza said he has no intention of stepping away from the fight. 

Araiza said that even after being banned from campus, he still feels connected to the workers he organized alongside, many of whom have become increasingly wary of their own employment after Araiza’s firing.

“I feel like I’m still a shop steward,” he said. 

At the same time, Araiza said his criticism of Pomona’s labor practices does not mean he has turned his back on the institution itself. “I love Pomona College,” he said. “I hate that they’re anti-union.”

For Araiza, the goal has never been to walk away from the college, but to change it. Throughout his time at Pomona, Araiza has seen the power of community support in union fights throughout the last decade. After Pomona described workers’ demands for a living wage as not “realistic”, dining hall workers authorized a strike and won a $7.25 wage increase during 2022 negotiations. At Pitzer, workers won a year-long rehiring campaign after Pitzer management fired three workers for showing support for the union at work. 

 “I love working there,” he said. “I’m telling you, like to tell them, we are good. We’re fighting. I’m gonna come back, foo.”

Read a Spanish translated version of the article here.