Employees at Longhorn Coffee Co. in the William C. Powers Student Activity Center say issues with new management has left them understaffed.

McKenna Golen, a government sophomore and student manager at Longhorn Coffee Co., said the new management began sending home many of her co-workers without notice, inhibiting some students’ ability to support themselves and leaving the remaining employees struggling with the work.

“When we try to explain these (concerns) to management and express the fact that it’s not enough staff, … the explanation that we have consistently been given is that the business doesn’t make enough to support this amount of workers,” Golen said. 

Erich Geiger, executive director of Residential Dining and Longhorn Hospitality, said the cuts in hours were due to overhiring and construction delays in other WCP restaurants such as Chick-fil-A and Sabor Tacos y Más.  

“The need for reduction in the staff, over hiring and oversight happened at the beginning of the year,” Geiger said. “This caused some cuts for a brief period. We asked for volunteers to help secure hours and roles for those students, and we wanted to avoid any reductions. We did retain several senior staff during the transition. We were able to relocate remaining students and hours went back to normal.”

One employee, who chose to remain anonymous to protect her job, said she had to supplement the lost income after her scheduled hours dropped from 15 a week to five. 

“Recently, I went on food stamps or EBT,” she said. “I have to work a certain amount of hours to cover my rent. They’ve been cutting my hours, so I’ve been losing money working this job.”

The student said she asked to move to another location where she could work more hours but was only moved after a meeting between the student employees and management that occurred weeks later.

“The management’s reason (for the cut in hours) was that new management had been offering to relocate us and we weren’t taking it, that we were too picky to work,” the employee said. “I had to interject because that just wasn’t true.”

The student did end up transferring to another location within the WCP but said she is looking for jobs outside of the University.

“We’re depending on (UHD) for our livelihoods,” the employee said during the meeting with management. “I said, ‘I expect to see some kind of improvements soon,’ and I’m still waiting on it.”

The cuts were especially difficult for international students who can generally only work at the University due to their visa, Golen said. 

“They’ve started enforcing a limit on the amount of people who can work at certain times of the day,” Golen said. “Currently, the limit that they give us feels very inadequate for the needs of our location.”

Golen said that while hour cuts have stopped, the Longhorn Coffee Co. is still understaffed. 

“Hour cuts stopped, but that’s because most students quit,” Golen said. “The relocation process was quite unfeasible for most of us. We’re still feeling the effects of being understaffed, but they have no one to call on to come in because they’re all gone.”

Geiger said the University has worked to increase the number of student employees on campus in the past years.

“One of the things that we’ve really worked toward is increasing that number (of student employees),” Geiger said. “We’re close to having doubled our student staff from previous years. It is something that we’re committed to, and we’re also wanting to make sure that (the student employee) experience is a positive one.”