UNITE HERE, a union of Aramark employees who work at Leo O’Donovan Dining Hall, Starbucks, Cosi and Dr. Mug, has embarked on a campaign to improve employee wages, working conditions, and rights. The campaign comes amid negotiations between Aramark and its employees to renew the company’s labor contract.
Aramark workers at Georgetown face many injustices on a daily basis. A cashier at Leo’s, for example, earns over four dollars less than his or her counterpart at nearby American University, where Aramark also operates dining services. Georgetown’s Aramark employees also pay almost double for the health insurance policy Aramark provides and receive none of the dental, vision, or short-term disability benefits that AU’s Aramark employees do. Full-time Aramark employees at Georgetown also currently only get paid for 37.5 hours of their 40-hour workweek, because Aramark does not consider the breaks workers take to be working hours. As a result, Aramark employees do not earn what constitutes a living wage under Georgetown’s Just Employment Policy.
Aramark must eradicate the blatant injustices that currently exist in its labor contract at Georgetown. Paying its employees a lower salary or requiring them to pay more for less healthcare coverage in different college dining operations are inexplicable and unacceptable inequities that Aramark needs to address. As a third party to the negotiations, Georgetown University cannot force requirements upon Aramark. Nevertheless, it ought to reconsider how it applies its Just Employment Policy to on-campus auxiliary businesses if those businesses fail to live up to the spirit of the policy.
The negotiations are more than just another example of a textbook labor struggle. They also shed light on perceptions of Leo’s within the campus community. Students frequently speak disparagingly about the quality of our only dining hall. The blame for that, however, falls not on Leo’s workers, but on Aramark. Without the quality, locally sourced food that Leo’s employees want as part of their new contract, they will have a harder time taking pride in their work and preparing food that students actually enjoy. Moreover, they will continue to bear the brunt of hurtful complaints about on-campus dining, all the while being subjected to systematic mistreatment by Aramark.
If students wish to pressure Aramark and the university to enact concrete change, instead of grumbling about bad food and average service, they must understand the conditions workers face. Aramark workers want to provide a quality food service, but they cannot do so with such poor employment conditions. The issues that UNITE HERE has raised need to become concerns of the entire undergraduate population.
Four years ago, students joined forces with Aramark employees when they unionized. Now, students must once again lend their support to the cause of Leo’s workers during the negotiations. Otherwise, every meal we swipe will only perpetuate the unfair employment practices and inequitable compensation that they suffer as they work tirelessly to prepare our daily meals.
