Allentown, PA –Cafeteria workers at Lafayette College and Lehigh Valley Hospital are calling for the National Labor Relations Board to investigate potential federal labor law violations by food service provider Sodexo.According to two charges filed today with the labor board, Sodexo management unlawfully interrogated and threatened workers with discipline for trying to form a union with 32BJ SEIU.
“My coworkers are scared of management finding out that we are interested in forming a union and that they will lose their jobs,” Genevieve Repsher, a Sodexo employee at Lafayette College, says. “I will always speak up. Now, I know we need a union to improve our jobs and our lives and I’m going to organize and stand up for our rights.”
Lehigh Valley workers like Ms. Repsher are organizing for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Area Sodexo employees earn as little as $8.25 an hour, and many can’t afford heath care coverage for themselves or their families.
The workers are winning allies among local elected leaders and students. The majority of the Allentown City Council signed a pledge to support Sodexo employees and called on institutions to sever ties with the French-owned multinational if it did not improve conditions. Area college students have been building support on campus for workers.
“The Sodexo workers on my campus deserve the right to bargain for a decent wage and affordable health care,” said Joe Caporoso, who graduated from Muhlenberg College and is getting an advanced degree at Lehigh University. “Because my dad was a union member, I had the opportunity to go to college. The children of Sodexo workers deserve the same chance.”
In addition to Lehigh Valley Hospital and Lafayette College, Sodexo workers at Muhlenberg College, Moravian College, Lehigh University and Sacred Heart Hospital are organizing. Sodexo employs more than 1,000 workers in the area and 110,000 nationwide. Last year alone, the company made $1 billion in profits. The organizing effort in Lehigh Valley is part of a national campaign to raise standards for Sodexo workers.
With more than 120,000 members along the East Coast, including 16,000 in Pennsylvania, 32BJ SEIU is the largest property services union in the country.
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updated 2/23/2010
