Food service workers and students expressed dismay at the slow pace of contract negotiations at a United Student Labor Action Coalition (USLAC) meeting last Tuesday.
The union that represents all food service workers on campus, UNITE HERE Local Chapter 217, is currently in talks with foodservice provider Bon Appétit to negotiate the details of their contract.
Although she declined to discuss specific points in the contract negotiations, union representative Raquel Adorno, expressed what seems to be a common sentiment among campus food service workers in refusing to give up certain hard-won rights and benefits.
“We don’t want to give up things we’ve fought hard to obtain,” she said. “We’ve been organized since 1983…we’re asking, why should the workers go backwards?”
She echoed Weshop cashier Sharon Wade, who in a Feb. 29 Wespeak called upon Bon Appétit to acknowledge worker gains and offer a more equitable contract.
“After continually offering an inferior contract to the food service workers at Wesleyan, Bon Appétit was made to understand, very clearly, we are not going backwards!!!” Wade wrote. “A lack of positive proposals from Bon Appétit will be considered an insult to the food service workers for the work we do.”
Union representative Adorno agreed.
“The jobs we do are important,” she said. “We give our time, we give our skills…I’ve been here for 18 years. [The negotiations] are moving very slowly. We’re hoping there won’t be a slowdown in service.”
She called attention to the situation at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., where in 2003 food service and other workers went on strike during contract negotiations. While expressing her hope that severe measures would not be necessary, she said that, “the extreme measures union members take, like at Yale, could lead up to a strike.”
Len Nalencz, an organizer with UNITE HERE Local Chapter 217, also refused to comment on specific points in the negotiations.
“I can tell you that workers have signed a solidarity petition saying we will not go backwards [and lose our gains],” he said.
The solidarity petition, he says, is designed to show that workers are determined not to let their livelihoods be undermined.
Jessie Spector ’08, an USLAC member, agreed.
“Wesleyan should be more involved [in the contract negotiations],” Spector said. “Compass Group, which owns Bon Appétit, made over $1.5 billion last year…there’s no reason why they can’t give more to people who work for them.”
Adorno, the union representative, urged Wesleyan students to perform what she viewed as their important role in the contract negotiations.
“One thing students can do is help talk to the Wesleyan administration that they [the administration] are responsible to make sure that workers are treated fairly in this process,” she said.
She attributed past campaigns on behalf of workers’ rights as successful partly due to the efforts of groups such as USLAC and to widespread student involvement.
Bon Appétit Manager Delmar Crim, noted that “things do go judiciously slow” in contract negotiations.
The issues, he asserted, are complex.
“There are lots of things being discussed,” he said. “They will have a long-range impact.”
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