Dissatisfied with decisions made by Bon Appetit, the Wesleyan Dining Union has accused the dining service company of violating the agreed upon contract and has responded in a number of dramatic ways.
On Aug. 15, 68 campus union workers walked over to the temporary Bon Appétit headquarters to confront Delmar Crim, Bon Appétit’s Resident District Manager.
According to Jeff Hill, a first cook and union steward who has worked at Wesleyan for 28 years, workers were angry because the policies of Compass, Bon Appétit’s London-based parent company, require that employees who work a 40-hour week take an unpaid half-hour lunch break daily. According to Hill, the accumulated down time, altogether 2.5 hours per week, equals a $3,800 annual decrease in salary.
“All 68 of us walked over there one day and we said, ‘Who had 40-hour jobs last year?’” Hill said. “Twenty-three raised their hands. We asked who were scheduled to have 40-hour jobs this year and three people raised their hands.”
According to Hill, he knocked on the door with a fellow steward and demanded that Crim, who answered, talk to them. Eventually Crim agreed to talk and promised to consult with the union’s representative.
Three days later, dining service employees went to MoCon, many expecting to sign 40-hour contracts. Instead, they were again offered 37.5-hour contracts that eliminated paid lunches.
After further negotiations, he said, an agreement was reached where 40-hour positions would be restored with the exception that Bon Appétit could cut the hours if needed.
There has also been controversy in regard to Sandy Baik, 67, a seven-year Weshop cashier and union steward, who is currently without health insurance for herself and her retired husband.
Last year Baik was scheduled for 22.5 hours per week, but when she returned to sign up for hours this year, her position had been cut to 18.5 hours. Union employees only receive benefits for jobs with over 20 hours.
With four hours of weekly salary lost, as well as her new health insurance payments, Baik estimates that she will lose $1,056.90 per month.
She thinks her position’s hours were cut specifically to save the company money.
“It’s all about money,” she said. “They’re not the ones losing their insurance. You really don’t know how it feels until it happens to you.”
Crim disagrees with Baik’s accusations that the company cut her job in order to save money. He holds that in the four day sign-up period beginning Aug. 29, Baik could very well have signed up for other jobs because of her senior position, but instead demanded to stay in the same, non-benefit position.
“[Baik] is not obligated to stay in any position,” Crim said. “That job went down to a less-than-20-hour position, but she had the option to choose any other job with benefits because of her seniority. Sandy Baik had every right and every option.”
Baik thinks that Crim felt that her union-backed Blue Cross Blue Shield health care plan gave her unnecessary benefits for the number of hours she works.
“I asked [Crim] why he had taken my Sunday and given it to another person,” she said. “He said, ‘Well, typically in the industry you should work 30 to 32 hours for health benefits.’”
Now Baik is accusing Crim of violating Article 34, Section 2 of the agreed-upon legal contract between Bon Appétit and the union.
“The company will not reduce hours or eliminate positions without cause,” reads the contract, part of which the Argus obtained from Baik. “The company will not reduce scheduled hours strictly to reduce profits.”
Hill agrees. “It is a violation of contract,” he said. “They cut hours for monetary gain, solely. It’s a big business thing on the back of the worker. Someone above [Crim] is definitely taking a fine-tooth comb to our contract and trying to find any loophole to save money.”
Crim refutes the allegations, stating that Baik’s position was not changed for any monetary gain and that she easily could have found more hours.
“I’ve been made aware of that part of the contract,” he said. “But we have increased positions and hours and it’s up to Sandy to bid on positions that had the hours to get her benefits.”
While last year there were 68 benefit positions, there are now 78. Crim says that while Baik cannot bid on any positions now that job openings have ended—unless her hours are reduced by 20 percent—she can bid for another position if another opens, which he thinks will happen soon.
Though there are several other issues that have been worked out, such as contention over Bon Appétit’s suggested Aetna health insurance policy—which was offered with a $1000 incentive that Hill described as a “bribe,”—there is another prominent issue: the sushi served at the Cafe on the first floor of the Usdan Campus Center. The sushi preparation was contracted out to the Advanced Fresh Concepts (AFC) Corporation based in Compton, California.
AFC employees are not union members, and thus do not receive union benefits. This worries Baik, who wonders if the rest of the food services will be subcontracted like at The University of Hartford, where there is now a Dunkin Donuts on campus.
“They brought in other people for the sushi stand and told us they wouldn’t be in the union,” she said. “What’s to stop them from saying, ”Oh, we’ll were gonna bring in a Dunkin’ Donuts, and why, we’re going to bring in a Pizza Hut. Our worry is that they will just bring in a bunch of subcontractors that aren’t in our union and we will lose our jobs.“
Crim maintains that there will be no more contracting and that the situation, which he says is currently being negotiated with the union, will soon be worked out.
”We’re trying to find a solution,“ he said. ”This won’t take a lot of time to turn around. The union is talking to the regional mangers of AFC to find a solution that’s good for everyone.“
Ultimately, Hill is thankful for some members of Bon Appétit, such as Jeff LaChance, as well as the students of Wesleyan University, who he has found indispensable in his 24 years as a member of the union.
”There has been no other single group of people that has helped us as much as the Wesleyan students,“ he said. ”Long term people who have worked here a long time love you guys because you have always helped us in our struggle against big business.