While both Wesleyan University and Bon Appetit Management Co. claim “social responsibility” as an operative principle, the changes made by Bon Appetit amount to a severe breach of responsibility to the dining service workers on campus. Promises have been broken, and workers are suffering life-altering consequences. It is important that the efforts to repair this egregious state are undertaken in order to make Wesleyan a safe and just place to work.
When Bon Appetit won the dining bid, they signed an agreement that they would assume the contract that the UNITE HERE union members reached with Aramark. The case of Sandy Baik losing her hours and thus health insurance is an example of how this agreement has been violated (despite Delmar Crim’s problematic proposal that Baik use her seniority to take another worker’s position and presumably their benefits). While management has been known to claim that “business needs have changed,” students and workers alike seem to agree that the new facilities are clearly undermanned, though the new Bon Appetit menus are more labor-intensive than Aramark’s. While new workers have been hired, many of them are to fill in for workers who had their hours shaved and their benefits taken. This is a blatant move to avoid paying for health insurance benefits.
Throughout negotiations, workers have been inappropriately put on the defensive about their compensation, but the wages and benefits that Wesleyan dining employees receive were hard-won and are integral to the lives of their recipients. A $3,800 loss is extremely significant, notwithstanding Crim’s assertion that the wages and benefits received are “enough to have someone make your grilled cheese.”
The hiring of non-unionized workers at AFC Sushi is also a violation of the assumption agreement. All parties involved have passed the buck of responsibility while the AFC workers work long days in questionable conditions with no health coverage.
The working environment at the Usdan Center is unanimously “worse than Mocon.” There have been issues with leakages, food storage, and there have been injuries, including one incident involving a worker receiving scalding burns from working with a kettle.
Bon Appetit’s mistreatment of workers is not an isolated event. They have been accused of anti-union tactics in Oberlin (where a worker stated, “Step out of line and they’ll make life hard for you”), and were found to have engaged in unlawful union-busting at Washington University-St. Louis. At Cornell, they engaged in similar hour-cutting, but this decision was eventually reversed by a phone jam.
We call upon Bon Appetit to honor its contract and reverse cut-backs in hours and benefits and ensure that all dining service workers on campus are making a living wage in decent work conditions. We ask that the administration take a leadership role to meet the standards of social responsibility that it sets for this university. We ask that the student body support the workers as well. Petitions will be available for signing on Wednesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. You can also e-mail Bon Appetit Resident District Manager Delmar Crim (dcrim@wesleyan.edu) or Wesleyan Dean of Campus Programs, Rick Culliton (rculliton@wesleyan.edu). We thank The Argus and Wesleying for their coverage of these issues. We look forward to working with everyone.
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