This activity is widespread - it spans eight states and is the basis of 16 unfair labor practice charges pending before the National Labor Relations Board. When Sodexo began cracking down on workers' efforts to form a union, the company's food service workers and janitors were fighting for fair wages, access to affordable health care, and dignity and respect on the job. Now workers are protesting this disrespect of their rights.
Sodexo is the 22nd largest employer in the world, and, despite making more than a billion dollars in operating profit in 2009, Sodexo pays its workers in the United States as little as $7.50 an hour. Even if a worker is lucky enough to get full-time hours year-round (which is hardly the case for many of the company's workers), that still comes to just $15,600 per year--well below the poverty line for a family of four of $22,050.
Access to affordable healthcare is also a problem for Sodexo workers. In fact, two-thirds of Sodexo's non-managerial employees in the United States are not covered by health insurance offered by the company. "We don't make enough money to pay for the health insurance they offer to us. The plan is over $300 a month," said Dorsi Forte, a Sodexo worker at Westfield State University at Massachusetts. "We barely make ends meet now. Why are they offering us insurance that we can't afford to get? It doesn't make any sense to me."
Sandy Dailey, a food service worker at Ohio State University, cannot afford to pay for medical care out-of-pocket on the $9 an hour she makes. Despite having a serious heart condition, her lack of affordable health insurance means she hasn't seen a doctor in 3 years. Sandy has already had two heart attacks at work--both of which came after she had to lift heavy boxes of syrup for sodas--and without access to health care she is constantly at risk of having another one.
She is supposed to take medicine for her high blood pressure but can't afford it. "So I lift the boxes," she says, tears streaming down her face. "I know I shouldn't, but what choice do I have? If I don't do it, I don't get scheduled."
Apart from wages and benefits, many Sodexo workers report that dignity on the job is a major issue. "In the kitchen, the 'Respect and Fair Treatment' poster is just a decoration, because the only ones that get any respect here are managers," said Rodd Sweet, a prep cook at the University of Denver
With service sector jobs--such as those provided by Sodexo--predicted to account for 96 percent of all job growth between now and 2018, our country cannot afford to let them remain dead-end jobs.
What's worse, when Sodexo workers stand up to improve their jobs and transform the service sector, they're met with a pattern of illegal activity to suppress their efforts - even when this activity violates federal law. Over the course of the next two weeks Sodexo cafeteria workers and janitors--joined by students, religious leaders, and elected officials in 10 states--will protest these attacks on their efforts to form a union by participating in rallies and leading strikes in some locations, and some individuals may participate in civil disobedience. Events are planned in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, Colorado, Louisiana, Georgia, and California.
UNISON currently has a solidarity delegation in the states with the SEIU and a report from them will feature later on the site.