by Abiba Biao The New Haven independent
Local 217 Secretary-Treasurer Josh Stanley.
It’s Scabby the Rat!
Roughly 150 union members, students, and local labor allies rallied at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) Wednesday to protest for better wages — amid stalled contract negotiations with the food-services corporate giant Sodexo.
According to Local 217 Secretary-General Josh Stanley, SCSU’s dining workers will take a strike vote on Sept. 24.
“If we don’t get it,” yelled Nicholas McDonald, who has worked at Southern for 30 years.
”Shut it down,” the crowd roared back in response.
The demonstration was hosted by Local 217 — UNITE HERE, a union of hospitality workers, and joined protests and negotiations conducted by other food-services workers at other state college campuses, including at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) and Western Connecticut State University (WCSU).
Attendees at the rally included roughly 80 food-service workers from SCSU’s Connecticut Hall and Michael J. Adanti Student Center. They also included Local 217 union members from the University of New Haven as well as union members at Yale University, who were in attendance to show solidarity.
Diana Bailey-St. Mark, an organizer at Local 217, said that negotiations between the union and Sodexo occurred over the summer, but that there hasn’t been “any substantial” progress.
Bailey-St.Mark said that many food-services workers have trouble stretching their salaries to last the entire year, as they work only during the academic year, or for roughly eight-and-a-half months.
“The wages we’re asking for would literally change somebody’s life, because now we have workers who’ve never had a second job working a second job,” she said.
A Sodexo representative did not respond to a request for comment by the publication time of this article. According to WFSB, Sodexo is offering the food-service workers $26 an hour. WFSB also reported that there are 280 workers in the union currently negotiating with Sodexo.
State Sen. Julie Kushner …
… and State Sen. President Pro Tem Martin Looney.
Wednesday’s protest began in front of Connecticut Hall and ended at Hilton C. Buley Library. As protesters made their way across the pedestrian bridge to the academic quad, drivers honked in support.
Danbury State Sen. Julie Kushner gave the penultimate speech to the animated crowd. Kushner, who served as a union leader for 42 years at United Auto Workers (UAW) and is the co-chair for the Connecticut General Assembly Labor and Public Employees Committee, shared her support for the cause.
“What you’re fighting for here is much much bigger than these campus contracts,” she said. “It’s something that will affect all workers. If we lose in any sector, it affects every sector.”
Kushner also offered a rebuttal to a speech by Gov. Ned Lamont, who made an appearance earlier in the demonstration.
“He spoke very passionately about maintaining your wages, maintaining your benefits, and I was so glad to hear him say all of that. It’s so important,” she said. “But I do want to mention — and I did say it to him — it would be a lot easier for you to take this step if you knew you’d get unemployment after a couple of weeks on strike.”
The crowd erupted into applause and chants of “S.B. 8, S.B. 8, S.B. 8,” ensued, referring to Senate Bill No. 8, a striking workers compensation bill that Lamont vetoed in June.
Giving closing remarks for the rally was New Haven State Sen. and President Pro Tem Martin Looney. Looney said that there will be continued efforts around S.B. 8 and that the senate will work towards addressing other workers rights “as swiftly as we can.”
“The thing we also need to note is that the Sodexo workers at the cafeterias at the state university campuses… they may be technically employed by Sodexo, but they are working in effect for state agencies in Connecticut,” he said, eliciting cheers from the crowd.
Looney underlined the importance of university support, saying, “We cannot have the state of Connecticut practicing anti-union behavior and anti-union practices” and added that he was “very disturbed” to hear that the Connecticut public universities were creating contingency plans to hire replacement workers in case a strike were to take place.
In a campus-wide email sent out on Tuesday by Tracy Tyree, vice president of student affairs at SCSU, informing the campus community about the demonstration, Tyree outlined SCSU’s involvement with the negotiations, saying that contract negotiations “have been ongoing since March.”
“It’s important to clarify that Southern is not a party to the collective bargaining process between Sodexo and Local 217, and we are not at the negotiating table. The negotiation and settlement of the terms in question are solely between Sodexo and the union,” the email reads. “As a public university, Southern respects the right to peaceful assembly and free expression. We remain hopeful that Sodexo and the union will reach a fair and timely agreement for all concerned.”
Samantha Norton, a spokesperson for Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU), said the same in a separate comment sent to the Independent on Thursday: “Our dining services teams at Central, Southern, and Western Connecticut State Universities provide a vital service to students, faculty, and staff. While CSCU and its universities are not at the bargaining table as we are not parties to the collective bargaining process between Sodexo and Unite Here Local 217, we urge the parties to reach a fair and timely agreement.”
“What we need to make sure of is that the university system hears loud and clear that we are watching closely at not only what Sodexo does, but what they do,” Looney said during Wednesday’s protest. “They’re maintaining that they’re keeping Sodexo as a separate entity that’s at arms from them; we don’t buy that. We don’t buy that at all. We are holding them accountable for everything that Sodexo says and does.”
Outside on the quad were college juniors Tate Kerr and Sammy Albright, showing their support.
“I think that it’s important to have student solidarity and worker solidarity, so to stand with the workers and support them and to show the administration that if we don’t get it, we’re going to shut it down,” Kerr said.
Kerr, a psychology major with a concentration in mental health at SCSU, is also a member of the Revolutionary Communists of America. They said they were inspired to get into organizing by what they described as the genocide in Gaza. “I was sick and tired of seeing billionaires profit and children die. I think that it’s unnecessary and I think that if the workers organize… we could definitely solve things like mass hunger and homelessness.”
Albright, a history major at Yale and member of Socialists Alternative, said that his ethos behind organizing came from helping New Haven Public Schools high schoolers organize a walkout in May against the underfunding of schools and budget cuts. He praised the collaboration between workers at SCSU and CCSU and advocated for student mobilization behind the cause.
“I support all workers fighting for better living conditions and I think the strike is the strongest way that workers can fight and win,” he said.
“Every single worker at Southern, Central, and WestConn, is making less than they were in 2020 because of rampant inflation,” Joshua Stanley, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 217, said to the crowd during Wednesday’s protest. He added that workers may be missing an estimated $20,000 in wages over the past decade.
Stanley announced strike vote dates on Sept. 24 at SCSU and on Sept 29 at CCSU.
“We’re hoping that we don’t have to [walk out], but in the event that we have to, the workers are preparing themselves,” St.Mark said.
Tate Kerr and Sammy Albright.
Posterboards filled with photos of food workers from Southern and Central.