Nearly 100 students, faculty and community members rallied in 25-degree temperatures Wednesday in support of Sodexo workers on campus.
The demonstration, which started with approximately 30 people and more than tripled at its peak, began at the fountain in front of the Glenn G. Bartle Library Tower at 12:30 p.m. Protesters attracted bystanders as they chanted “shame on Sodexo” over the megaphone to the beat of drums.
“I want change and I want it now,” one student, who joined the rally near Dickinson Community, said.
Advocates who call themselves the Sodexo Workers Justice Coalition decided in a meeting on Monday to organize the protest for Wednesday, the day contract negotiations were initially scheduled to take place. The negotiations were later delayed.
Full-time and part-time Sodexo employees at BU, excluding students, clerical workers and management staff, are up for a new contract. Workers say Sodexo representatives are calling for cuts to healthcare.
In past years workers’ healthcare was covered in full by the company, but Sodexo wants them to pay 25 percent in the new contract, employees said. Paul Kerns, general manager for the company at BU, said he wouldn’t comment on the terms of the negotiations because they’re ongoing.
He did say, however, that under the old contract workers were paid between $7.15 and $9.50 an hour.
Negotiations, which have been pushed since the deal expired in August, were rescheduled for this week, but the workers’ union representative fell ill. The union, UniteHERE (Hotel Employees Restaurant Employees) local 471, offered the workers a new representative, but they opted to wait until their primary agent recovered. Negotiations are now scheduled for Dec. 3 and 4.
Sodexo, the food service provider at BU, reaped more than $7 billion in its last fiscal year.
At Monday’s coalition meeting attendees formulated four demands to present at the demonstration, including full, employer-paid health care, a living wage, a secure retirement plan and the right of employees to exercise their First Amendment rights without fear of reprisal.
Crowd members carried signs that read “Workers who feed us deserve a wage that allows them to feed themselves” and “Sodexo: big profits, low wages,” as the mass moved into the dining area of the New University Union. Afterward, demonstrators marched through the dining halls of Dickinson, College-in-the-Woods and Hinman College, as well as the Chenango Room.
Members of the Graduate Student Employees Union were in attendance, and spoke of future plans to continue the movement.
“If a strike happens, we are going to shake the campus,” Utku Balaban, chief steward for the group, said.
At 1:30 p.m. protesters chanted “health care now” as they walked into CIW’s dining hall. Sodexo workers clapped and smiled as one activist shouted, “How about a living wage for the workers that feed us everyday?”
Marchers approached spectators with a petition in support of workers’ health care. By Friday the petition boasted more than 1,800 signatures.
Marisol Maddox, a senior majoring in environmental studies, took the megaphone in the Chenango Room.
“They feed us here every day and they’re treated like total shit,” she said. “To have all these classes teaching about justice on this campus, and to have such an unjust thing happen … I feel it’s so ironic.”
Sodexo workers said the outpour of support was inspiring.
“Some of them were actually even crying,” one worker, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said.
Kerns could not be reached for comment yesterday, but a spokeswoman at Sodexo headquarters commented on the situation.
“Sodexo looks forward to resuming the negotiations shortly and reaching an agreement that is satisfactory to all,” spokeswoman Monica Zimmer said.
She declined to discuss details of the negotiations citing requests from a federal mediator.
Ben Elliot, a student at BU and organizer for the Coalition, said the group plans to meet again on Monday at 7 p.m. in the GSO lounge and discuss further action.
“We respect the rights of people to express their views and the University continues to monitor the situation,” University spokeswoman Gail Glover said. “However, we don’t have a role and are not privy to any of the discussion.”