Mason admin steps in after protests: Will investigate dining workers’ claims of mistreatment
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, […]
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