In past weeks, many Bon Appétit food service workers have been sporting “Local 217-UNITE HERE” pins to call attention to their upcoming contract negotiations. Their current contract, which encompasses a total of 106 workers at Usdan University Center; Pi Café; Summerfields; and Weshop, expires on February 28, 2011.
“It’s really early in the game since our contract doesn’t expire until February, but we want to start [negotiations] earlier because we don’t want to work without a contract,” said Usdan Marketplace Cook Raquel Baptiste, who has been worked at Wesleyan for 20 years.
Local 217 is a chapter of the national UNITE HERE union, representing campus food service workers across Connecticut and parts of nearby states.
This will be the second contract that workers negotiate with Bon Appétit Management Company since the company took over campus dining services in 2007. According to Local 217 Vice-President Sue Silvestro, healthcare benefits were a major point of contention in the 2008 contract negotiations.
“We felt that there were a lot of glitches last time in our negotiations,” Silvestro said. “We’ve been talking about [the upcoming negotiations] for a while and we’re hoping that there isn’t going to be a fight of any kind, but if there is, we’re prepared for it.”
Silvestro says that union representatives hope to begin negotiations in November.
“We want to sit down and negotiate in good faith as we always do,” she said. “We really don’t intend to go backwards. Job security is an issue, [as well as] health insurance, and of course wages.”
Bon Appétit is a subsidiary of the London-based corporation Compass Group, which employs approximately 386,000 people worldwide. The University’s Resident District Manager for Bon Appétit, Michael Strumpf, who will be present at the negations, shared his aims for the contract in an e-mail to The Argus.
“Bon Appétit seeks to maximize quality and service at Wesleyan University, and to provide our associates with a fair and competitive wage and benefits package,” he wrote.
Baptiste says that she sees the relations between Local 217 members and Bon Appétit as positive, but she notes the challenges of the recession for many workers.
“Because of the economy, it’s a scary time for a lot of people,” she said. “We have families that we’re supporting, some of us have kids in college, some of us have homes and mortgages, and some of us live week by week because that’s just the way the times are sometimes.”
Despite these challenges, Silvestro expressed a fondness for the University community.
“It’s not just a matter of coming in to do our job, we love the kids,” Silvestro said. “It’s just such a phenomenal community to work in.”