Benson workers rally for increased support

By Matt Rupel

"What do we want? Respect! When do we want it? Now!"

Chants resonated throughout Market Street last Friday as dozens of protestors marched from Shapell Lounge carrying signs that read, "Bon Appétit gives no respect," and shouting, "No abuse-o Bon Appétit-o!"

The protestors, made up of workers from Benson and students from Santa Clara, demonstrated on Market Street across from Swig to bring attention to complaints regarding alleged mistreatment of Bon Appétit staff members by the restaurant company.

"It isn't about money," said Flor Barrientos, a Benson worker and one of the key protest leaders. "It's about respect. (Fabio Soto, the general manager of dining services at Santa Clara) doesn't give us respect."

Soto said that he feels this is inaccurate. "There are two sides to every story," he said. "We as management have worked extremely hard, particularly over these last 12 months, to help to nurture the relationship with the employees." Soto said that Bon Appétit has offered training sessions, held meetings with Labor Relations and the Service Employees International Union and made managerial changes.

"I would like to see the same effort put forth on the union side in terms of ‘respect,'" said Soto.

One of the workers, Edi, drew a sign depicting an octopus handling a cash register, food items and cleaning supplies. The octopus represented the Benson worker, expected to do multiple tasks at once.

Edi said that the Benson staff is overworked, with several tasks given to them at once. "I have to operate the cash register, but they ask me to help with other things, too," she said.

Daciano Sioda said that it's more than just a matter of lending the occasional hand where it is needed. Workers have to fill in for enough holes in what duties are being covered so that it's like taking on an additional position on top of the one they already have. According to Sioda, this causes their job performance in the tasks that fall under their assigned classification to suffer.

Soto, on the other hand, said that multi-tasking was fully outlined in the contract. "If somebody is working at La Parrilla," he said, "and we ask them to go wipe down a counter, which isn't typically their job task, but it's something that we need them to do to help out at another station, we're well within the collective bargaining agreement with the union and the SEIU, in terms of their classifications. We're within the contract to be able to do that."

According to Bob Della Rocchetta, a member of the Bon Appétit staff since 1982, members of the dish cleaning staff are severely underhanded. There are only three workers in the dish cleaning area, and these aren't like the dishwashers in a house, he said. The dishwashers in Benson are industry grade, using very hot steam to clean the dishes.

Della Rocchetta said that the workers have to load the dishwashers, scrub pots and pans and move the dirty dishes from the carousel to the dishwashers. Dishes get overloaded in the sinks and backed up in the carousel because the staff is unable to complete the workload fast enough. "It would be helpful if we had one more person," he said. "Five would be ideal, but four would be enough."

Gabriel Azevito, a facilities staff member in Benson for 40 years, said that he is often required to help maintain the dish room, which is an additional job position on top of his own. In fact, Azevito said that sometimes workers have to help in the dish room to maintain the heavy workload, which causes their other jobs to suffer.

Bon Appétit, however, feels that right now, workers and management are still in the process of learning how to properly accommodate the workload in Benson. "The thing to remember is, this is year one of an awesome renovation to this beautiful facility," said Soto. "Everybody's learning from it. These past four months, it's been a long journey of making adjustments and program changes."

One of the largest complaints the workers had was being placed on call, despite not being hired in an on-call position.

"There is a part-time job application and a full-time application," said Barrientos, "there's no on-call position."

Workers say that being on call requires them to put in hours that put them close to full-time, but don't qualify them for union positions. They also receive only one set of uniform pieces, where full-time workers receive three.

Also, on-call workers don't receive benefits.

According to Lori Flashner, the district manager for Bon Appétit operations, on-call staff are only brought in for situations where a position needs to be temporarily filled. "We already have a staff member in that position," she said. "So we don't want to hire someone brand new."

Added Soto,"Recently, we have posted seven new union positions so that on-call workers can be promoted to union positions."

Workers also felt that their complaints were heard, but mostly ignored.

"It's not like this is anything new," said Sioda, who explained that workers need to fill out a full report to complain when they could simply tell the manager that they need another worker. "It's not rocket science."

Soto felt differently, "It's really unfortunate that some of these issues that are being brought forth have reached the level that they have," he said. "Aside from two grievances that I didn't even hear on Friday, there are no other grievances on the table."

Accordng to Tim Carlson, program coordinator of Labor Action Committee, the workers normally speak at committee meetings, and then he relates their requests to Soto. "I'll usually e-mail or talk to Fabio and say, ‘What are you doing about X issue?'" he said, "I think there has been progress this year, but I think there are some issues that come up in our meetings that have been issues in the past."

Last year, the Benson workers had planned a protest, but it was called off at the last minute as a meeting was callled to negotiate with workers. Soto said that a similar meeting was planned for tomorrow in order to air these grievances.

Contact Matt Rupel at mrupel@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4546.