SEIU turns up the heat on Sodexo
Sodexo workers in Massachusetts fight for their right to a union
Clark University workers rallied for their right to a union on February 28 -- and drew a 200-strong crowd of community, labor, clergy, student, and faculty supporters. Photo by Sarrin List.
“Even though we are struggling just to survive, the main thing is respect.” That’s how Noemi Nunez, a Sodexo cashier at Clark University in Worcester, expresses why she and so many Massachusetts Sodexo workers are fighting for their right to be represented by SEIU. Headquartered in France, Sodexo is the 22nd-largest corporation in the world, providing food service, janitorial work and laundry services. In Massachusetts, where hundreds of Sodexo employees work at private and public universities, Local 615 is part of is a national and global effort with international unions from France and England as allies in which workers are asking Sodexo for a global agreement that will guarantee workers the right to freely form a union.
Sodexo posted more than a billion in profits in 2008. Yet workers’ wages often hover near the poverty line. Many can’t afford company-offered health insurance. At some sites, Sodexo has reportedly forced employees to work off the clock, failed to pay people for all hours worked, and neglected to pay proper overtime. Sodexo has illegally fired, spied on, and interrogated workers who want a union, according to charges filed with the National Labor Relations Board.
Massachusetts workers are standing up to raise awareness of the problems at Sodexo. Earlier this year, they joined in delegations to Sodexo’s U.S. headquarters in D.C. and regional headquarters in New Jersey. In January, Juan Salazar, a Sodexo receiver at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., took part in a workers’ delegation to the annual Sodexo shareholders meeting in Paris that delivered a petition signed by thousands of U.S. Sodexo workers calling on the company to improve pay and working conditions and respect worker rights.
“I’m representing my coworkers, who are afraid of getting fired,” said Salazar. “They work hard every day, but cannot afford to feed their families.”
At Clark, workers held a February 28 rally on Worcester’s Main Street. Nearly 200 people turned out, including Worcester Mayor Joe O’Brien, State Sen. Michael Moore (D-Millbury), State Rep. James O’Day (D-West Boylston), community supporters, the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, and Clark Unite!, a group of Clark students, faculty, staff, and alumni.
“The reality is that folks who work in the cafeteria in this school deserve an honest and fair wage…and that’s not happening right now, and that’s not right,” Mayor O’Brien told the crowd.
The union and Clark UNITE! have urged the university to live up to its responsibility to ensure that Sodexo workers at Clark receive fair wages and basic human rights at work. “Standing with campus workers to fight for respect and better working conditions is the thing I am most proud of doing as a student,” said Clark student Ryan Smith.