The College Try: SEIU Makes Another Go at Sodexo
As Georgia State University cafeteria workers cornered their manager one day this May, students wearing orange ribbons joined in, demanding a workplace free of intimidation against unions. After the manager refused to accept a letter from the workers, students asked to see him, demanding he not retaliate against the workers. But he had locked himself in his office.
While students chanted loudly, the manager called police, who told the crowd to disperse, “or else.” Students argued, and eventually yielded, but not before the workers who had put their jobs on the line saw how the students had lined up behind them.
SEIU and UNITE HERE: A Messy History
The effort against Sodexo, the world’s 22nd-largest employer, is also part of an ongoing battle between two unions to organize the mostly non-union food service industry. SEIU and UNITE HERE spearheaded a joint organizing project in 2005 called Service Workers United.
The new union was formed after controversial secret deals with the “Big 3” multinational food service companies, Aramark, Sodexo, and Compass. The deals allowed card check at workplaces of the company’s choosing, and defined how many workers could be organized overall. First contracts were established with substandard boilerplate language, and worker involvement in campaigns was often limited to signing on the dotted line.
Since SEIU and UNITE HERE went to war nearly two years ago, the joint union has become a battleground in the fight to control organizing in the industry. SEIU now controls SWU, and is pushing to re-establish national deals with the Big 3.
UNITE HERE opposes the SWU deals it once partnered in, claiming that SWU undercuts contract standards UNITE HERE’s other food service members have attained. In Chicago, this discontent has led to rank-and-file SWU members at several shops choosing to decertify and join UNITE HERE Local 1.
The “Clean Up Sodexo” campaign is not part of the controversial SWU project, but is, nonetheless, SEIU’s effort to revive a national card check agreement with the company.
Georgia State is one of 20 campuses nationwide where cafeteria workers are organizing as part of a Service Employees (SEIU) “Clean up Sodexo” campaign. Drives in the South are live at Tulane and Loyola in New Orleans and five schools in Atlanta: Emory, Georgia Tech, Morehouse, Clark Atlanta, and Georgia State, where workers took their campaign public this spring.
HARD TIMES IN GEORGIA
Soon after Georgia State subcontracted its food services to Sodexo in January, SEIU organizers hit campus. The company immediately held mandatory captive audience meetings, as it has on campuses nationwide. Sodexo’s lawyers led anti-union presentations, while students distributed leaflets prepared by SEIU to counter the misinformation.
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Sodexo hauled in more than $582 million in profits in 2008. Workers, meanwhile, get paid $7.25 an hour at GSU, with almost nonexistent raises and hefty health insurance premiums (up to $100 every two weeks). Employees also complain of forced overtime without compensation, and Sodexo understaffs shifts so workers have to do multiple jobs.
GSU students began by meeting with workers and did house calls with SEIU organizers. Students launched a petition drive and handed out literature on campus about cafeteria conditions, finding overwhelming support.
Workers, including some who’ve been fired, have been working with the union for months. A worker committee has drafted a list of demands, and many employees have felt compelled to stay on the job, despite their grievances. “I didn’t even want to come back next fall,” says Nick, a cafeteria worker. “Now we have to see this to the end.”
DESPITE HESITATIONS
SEIU’s effort to organize in college cafeterias has left a sour taste on some campuses. The union infamously dropped campaigns at big schools like University of North Carolina in 2008 in exchange for organizing rights at smaller campuses, leaving students and workers in the lurch. Student organizers in Atlanta do not expect this to happen, but have been frank from the beginning about their hesitations.
They’re encouraged by a student-union coalition to fight union-busting that has cropped up at schools throughout Atlanta, helped by Teamsters Local 728, the bus drivers’ union on various campuses. Students from GSU, Emory, Morehouse, and Georgia Tech have met to discuss a long-term goal of university codes of conduct on each campus. Unlike workers on other Atlanta campuses, the GSU workers don’t have recall rights. The GSU campaign is focused on winning those rights regardless of whether workers have a union contract—to ensure that subcontracted workers are protected, too.
Student organizing has focused on building a network of support for worker organizing across the city, no matter which union does it. SEIU has been a catalyst for this movement in Atlanta, whether the union expected to ignite widespread participation or not.
As students headed in different directions for the summer, several have continued actions and weekly meetings to maintain momentum. The challenge will be making sure workers and students can be at the fore of shaping an escalation strategy in the fall.
Sofia Lipko is active in the Georgia State campaign.