Every day, behind the first floor Usdan Center Café, several Asian workers who recently arrived in America and barely speak English roll sushi for the students of Wesleyan University. These non-union workers, who are paid by Advanced Fresh Concepts (AFC), a California-based food contractor, work side by side with union-backed Wesleyan dining employees. The union workers are now alleging that these employees are not receiving health benefits, are being forced to lie about their conditions, and are receiving their salaries in the form of non-documented, under-the-table transactions.
Irene Jackson, a cashier at the same café who has worked at Wesleyan for 15 and a-half years, believes she saw the tail end of one of these purported transactions.
“When I was leaving one day from work, the sushi guy was making a delivery and as he was leaving he had a handful—a stack—of money in his hand as well as a receipt,” Jackson said, demonstrating with a handful of napkins. “If I was making a delivery, I wouldn’t have had that much money if I wasn’t given it. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out: he just got paid.”
Raquel Adorno, a union steward who works as a second cook at Usdan, says that the sushi rollers aren’t receiving even the most basic worker rights.
“My concern with the sushi people is that they’re working alongside us without benefits, without good wages,” she said. “They’re non-union workers and I think they are getting paid cash under the table because they go downstairs and get money and separate it.”
The problem with under-the-table payment, Union workers say, is that if an employee does not have documentation that they are being paid, they consequently have almost no worker rights.
The sushi rollers, however, who communicated to the Argus through a Mandarin-speaking translator, disagreed with the allegations, saying that they regularly work 8 hour days, receive payments by check, and also receive health benefits and workers insurance.
But even Delmar Crim, the Bon Appetit Resident District Manager who was instrumental in subcontracting the AFC franchise, seems to have a different take.
“I don’t think they are getting benefits,” said Crim, who also acknowledged that he did not know how the men were being paid. “That’s at least what Len Nalencz told me.”
Len Nalencz is the Union Representative to Local 217, Wesleyan’s dining service union. Many of the allegations concerning a lack of health benefits have revolved around a meeting that Nalencz says he had recently with AFC Regional Manager Ningyi Hugh-Hu.
“This is straight from Ningyi Hugh-Hu’s lips,” Nalencz said. “He told me that all workers do not have health benefits, and I said, ‘Well, that’s a problem,’ and he said, ‘Well, that’s a problem with the United States.’ His general point was that most people don’t have health benefits and so he gave no indication that any funding of AFC would ever be able to provide health benefits.”
In an e-mail, Hugh-Hu asked that all questions be referred to AFC Legal Director Jeffrey Seiler, whose offices are located in Rancho Dominguez, California.
“Advanced Fresh Concepts Franchise Corporation’s policy and procedure is to require independently owned and operated franchisees’ compliance with all federal and state labor and employment laws,” Sieler wrote in an e-mail on Monday.
To Nalencz, the contradiction between Hugh-Hu, Crim and the workers suggests that the workers are not being forthcoming, perhaps due to pressure from higher-ups.
“Hugh told me that they do not have any benefits,” he said. “I don’t believe [the workers]. I think they’re being told what to say.”
Beyond the benefits issue, it’s not clear who is even running the sushi franchise in the Usdan Center. In his e-mail, Seiler distanced AFC from what he called the “independent owned and operated franchisee” (the sushi stand) at Wesleyan.
“AFC is not the independently owned and operated franchisee located at the Wesleyan University Campus Center,” he said.
“AFC requests and greatly appreciates…maintaining the distinction between AFC, the franchisee, the franchisee’s employees, Bon Appetit, Bon Appetit’s union employees and Bon Appetit’s non-union employees, if any.”
Through the translator, the sushi workers said Hugh-Hu, who Crim says shows up at Wesleyan once or twice a week, is their manager.
But Nalencz says he heard—from Hugh-Hu, himself—that Hugh-Hu is not the manager.
“I asked Hugh-Hu who is the owner or manager of the franchise and he told me that he was away,” Nalencz said. “Then I asked who the acting manager was, and though Hugh-Hu was reluctant at first to introduce me to the acting manager, I promised to only make small talk and he agreed to introduce me. The acting manager was a very young-looking guy who spoke very little English and introduced himself only as Lee. He was very nervous.”
Beyond the questions of who is actually running the franchise and whether the workers are receiving benefits and proper payments, the Union has also raised questions about whether their contract has been violated. Citing Article 29.1 of the contract, the Union has filed an official grievance to a third-party arbitrator.
The article essentially states that only union workers can do non-management work on campus. The sushi workers are not currently in the union.
Crim denies that the contract was broken, arguing that AFC has been hired at other union-protected colleges and that AFC’s presence has not detracted from the union-workers’ hours.
“Other union colleges do this,” he said. “It’s a specialized skill set and it’s something that you couldn’t really expect to accomplish without those skill sets. Last year, they were buying sushi off-site. So we’re not taking away union hours—we just want the customer to get a fresh product.”
Negotiations are currently underway to remedy the situation. Union Steward Jeff Hill, who has vocally criticized Bon Appétit a number of times, doesn’t plan on letting the issue over the potential contract violation fade away.
“We will unionize the sushi stand,” Hill said. “We will not give up on that. We’re going to organize, we’re going to hand out leaflets, and we’re going to protest if we have to.”
3 Comments
Anonymous
Unfortunately this practice still happens, not with just this company, but many sushi companies, including the one i currently work for as a supervisor.