Andres Ujueta was one of approximately 60 to 70 Sodexo workers who attended a strike of Sodexo on Wednesday and Thursday. “It is time for us to stick together for our rights,” said Ujueta. Photo by Matt Snyder
With members of George Mason University’s dining services on strike and the heart of campus spotted with purple-shirted protestors, Mason’s administration announced Friday that they would investigate dining service workers’ complaints about their employer.
Workers employed by the Mason dining services contractor Sodexo have said the company provides poor wages and benefits and have alleged injuries on the job like cuts and burns due to unsafe working conditions.
After being lobbied by GMU Students for Workers Rights, Mason administration met with workers Wednesday and later announced that their Office of Internal Audit and Management Services would look into individual worker claims and analyze the competitiveness of workers’ wages and benefits.
The protests erupted on campus Wednesday and Thursday and gathered over 80 participants, including Mason students, out-of-state Sodexo workers and the Service Employees International Union.
Of Mason’s more than 530 dining employees, Sodexo reported approximately 60 to 70 workers attended the strike on Wednesday and Thursday, which matched the rough visual count of protestors in the North Plaza and at the speak-out in the Johnson Center Cinema on Thursday.
The protest had a tightly organized quality, featuring a megaphone, organized chanting and enlarged color pictures on placards of worker injuries, including a grease burn and a badly cut finger.
Organizers from the Service Employees International Union helped run the event and marched with workers, and about nine Sodexo workers from other states including Georgia, Pennsylvania and Ohio also joined the march, said SEIU spokesman Matt Painter.
The protesters also attended the speak-out at the JC Cinema. Workers including Andres Ujueta and Cristela Morano, who have been with Sodexo for two years and 21 years respectively, claimed poor treatment by Sodexo management.
Ujueta said that Mason was a great place to work, but that he was fed up with poor treatment by management. “It is time for us to stick together for our rights,” said Ujueta. “We are not in the shadows no more, we know our rights.”
Morano, whose badly cut finger appeared on a placard, spoke through a translator and said her fingertip was cut working a machine and that Sodexo only gave her one mesh glove when she said she needed two. She said management told her a second glove would cost her $25, and that one of them “screamed” at her after the injury.
In response to Morano, Sodexo resident director Denise Ammaccapane said she was familiar with Morano’s injury and that the cheese grating machine she worked only requires one mesh glove, for the cutting hand, and that Morano admitted at the time she wore it on the wrong hand.
Ammaccapane added that employees who want two gloves get two and they never charge for the gloves. She denied anyone screamed at Morano.
Members of Sodexo management have repeatedly denied providing unsafe working conditions. Blue fliers circulated Thursday by Mason Dining on JC tables argued the SEIU is conducting a “smear campaign” and one member of management has said they are coaching the hourly workers.
The flier said workplace hazards are addressed at monthly meetings and that health inspectors passed the dining facilities without concern as recently as Tuesday. It reiterated statements by management that all employees are trained in safety and must sign paperwork proving they are and that proper equipment is provided.
Virginia State Senator Dave Marsden (D-37) also addressed workers at the speak-out. “I have a great deal of confidence with [Mason] administration, that they will sit down with management,” Marsden said. He hoped the administration and management would ensure a safe work environment. He reiterated the workers’ rights to organize a strike.
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