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Volume 74 Issue W3 Jan. 9, 2003 - Food services changes ownershipJump to: navigation, searchFood services changes ownershipAcquisition by Sodexho, Inc. stirs up talk of unionizing food service workersVolume 74 Issue W3Thursday, January 9, 2003

By Laura Knoeck, Fall 2001 Staff Writer

Thursday, November 1, 2001

In January, Wood Dining Services, which has a contract with Campus Auxiliary Services to run all on-campus rood and catering services, joined Sodexho Marriott Services, Inc., which merged with Sodexho Alliances and changed its name to Sodexho, Inc. The leading provider of food and facilities management in North America, Sodexho, Inc. employs 111,000 at 5,000 locations.

"It's not the same atmosphere anymore," said Mika Yamashita about the work environment in Hasbrouck Dining Hall. "I suspect it's the same way all over campus."

Yamashita, a junior from Brooklyn who has been working in Hasrbouck for almost two and a half years, said there have been complaints about late paychecks and undertrained staff.

Wood Dining Services took over in 1992 after the food service provider on campus, Service America Corporation, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Chapter 11 means that a company plans to undergo a period of financial reorganization and then resume business.

At that time, Wood Dining Services said it would continue to employ those working for Service America. Employees were also given the option of staying with the company, though their retirement benefits would be "indefinitely suspended." No one was laid off as a result of Service America losing its contract to CAS.

CAS is a nonprofit organization that is contracted with SUNY New Paltz to provide food services, cable television, refrigerator rentals, the campus bookstore and a variety of other campus services. They get their funding from the revenue earned from these services.

William Long, chief executive office of CAS, said that no one would be laid off this time either. "It's not going to happen," he said. "No people are going to be laid off. We'll have the same team as before."

But Marc Aisen, a representative of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), disagreed two weeks ago saying that without a union to help them obtain better working conditions, the food service workers would be "screwed."

SEIU is a nonprofit organization that fights for the rights of workers in a vast array of industries. It headed up he Safe Needles Now! Campaign to protect healthcare workers from being pierced by infected hypodermic needles and is currently advocating higher wages and increased benefits for the nation's janitors in its Justice for Janitors campaigns.

In order to gain support for the food worker's cause, the SEIU planned the first of a series of weekly rallies in front of the Haggerty Administration Building for last Wednesday at 3 p.m.

But the rally was cancelled on Wednesday because of a previously scheduled meeting for food court workers. The meeting, which had been scheduled weeks before by Long, was a regular monthly meeting that address workers complaints and general food service policies.

The meeting was scheduled for the same time as the rally. A representative of SEIU said that it didn't make sense to hold the rally when many of the workers would be unable to attend.

"The workers wanted to bring up the grievances themselves," the representative said. "It wouldn't be fair to hold the rally without them."

Ivette Villafuerte, an SEIU representative, is helping to organize the workers because they have approached her about earning better living wages and more benefits.

"We want to assist the workers in their efforts," she said.

All food service workers would be eligible for membership in the union once it was established.

In an earlier interview, General Manger of Dining Service Ralph Perez-Rogers said he does not believe a union is necessary and that the Wood Company is very deliberate in addressing the concerns of employees.