SAU, union leader to protest Aramark

Elysia Glover Staff Writer

North American labor union UNITE HERE is teaming up with Vassar College student activist groups in an effort to remove corporate food service providers from the campus. With Vassar’s contract with current food service provider Aramark coming up for re-bid on June 30, 2008, the groups have begun organizing a campaign to remove the corporation that has serviced campus dining since 1989.

Early last week, the Student Activist Union (SAU), the Hunger Action Committee, and the Class Issues Alliance met with Paul Dana, a researcher and organizer from UNITE HERE to discuss the upcoming protest. The effort will be a part of UNITE HERE’s larger nationwide campaign to educate colleges, universities, and prisons about what they have outlined as poor labor practices by the multi-national corporation and to pressure institutions against renewing contracts with Aramark.

“Essentially what we are working on nationally is to educate students about corporations like Aramark,” said Dana. “We do not advocate for another company, we are just there to provide information and support to student groups on campuses in their own campaigns against corporations like Aramark.”

UNITE HERE, a joint labor union with over 450,000 active members servicing much of the hospitality and manufacturing sectors in Canada and the U.S., has published a number of documents listing complaints of corporate abuse and malfeasance by Aramark.

In a brief fact sheet issued by UNITE HERE and distributed at the Monday, Feb. 18 evening meeting, the union outlined allegations of fraud and over-billing, concerns over health and safety practices and issues of quality assurance and mismanagement connected with the multi-national corporation.

In response to hopes by many members organizing the campus campaign that a switch away from Aramark could mean a switch to self-operational dining services, King replied that “All the bids are in,” and that as far as she knew, Vassar was “not considering that option at this time.”

Specific complaints issued against the company included a number of investigations and settlements concerning Aramark’s labor practices. UNITE HERE focuses much of its energy on organizing within the labor movement for, as they describe, “…innovative and effective campaigns utilizing corporate campaign strategies and impressive grassroots mobilization of workers and community allies,” according to the organization’s Web site.

An investigation by the Baltimore Wage Commission into Aramark’s two year violation of overtime laws, alleged that the company was withholding tips collected by the corporation resulting in settlements of $545,000 and $29,000, respectively, and the U.S. Department of Labor.

While many in the Vassar community are finding these allegations troubling, making an impact on labor practices on the Vassar campus is more complicated than a question of whether or not Aramark renews its contract with the school.

Unlike many of the institutions cited in the complaints, the approximately 100 employees servicing the All Campus Dining Center, the Retreat, Express Lunch, Java City, and the Atrium are employed by Vassar College and are already members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The presence of Aramark employees on campus is restricted to those at the managerial level, who work closely with both the SEIU and the Communications Workers of America, the two main workers’ unions on campus.

Director of Campus Dining Maureen King, an Aramark employee, said that she was “not familiar” with UNITE HERE, and had “not been approached” by the labor organizers in the past.

Regardless, those involved in the campaign, including SAU member Heather Lewis ’10, are making the effort to see Vassar reject corporate-run food services on campus. The switch to a self-operational, more localized food service program, Lewis ’10 argued, would solve important student concerns.

“On our end of it, students complain of low food quality and higher prices,” issues she felt would be resolved by the switch to self-operational food services.

“What we would want is not to have another food corporation take over operations,” Lewis said.

“Ideally we would get Vassar to be self-operational, and that is best for its workers as it eliminates all the subcontractors who take away accountability and responsibility from the top.”

According to a list issued by UNITE HERE, schools that have made the switch from Aramark include Yale University, Northwestern State University, Wesleyan University, George Washington University and Kenyon College.

Dana will be meeting with Class Issues Alliance, Hunger Action, and the SAU this Thursday. The meeting will be open to anyone interested in the campaign.