Students should support Bon Appetit workers' strike

By Josh Sbicca, Nina Jenkins and Stephanie Camoroda

After almost three months of contract negotiations, Bon Appetit management is still unwilling to give the employees and the union what they are asking for and deserve. Therefore, Bon Appetit employees are ready to strike.

If the Bon Appetit employees strike, do you know what that means to students?

No food, among other things. A picket line created by one group of unionized workers at a given location will be respected by other unionized workers in an act of solidarity until the demands are met by the first group and the strike ends.

The negotiations, which started in July when the previous contract ended, are reaching a critical moment. During tomorrow's negotiation session, Bon Appetit employees and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) representatives will attempt to piece together a new contract for the third time since July.

In a meeting on Oct. 13 with Santa Clara's Labor Action Committee, Union Representative Leah Berlanga said that they were no longer willing to give anything up. Seeing as the Bon Appetit employees are some of the lowest paid employees on campus, the 30-cent per-hour raise that will soon be implemented is not enough to cover the constantly rising costs of living and health insurance.

Aside from the raise, the union and employees plan to stay committed to two principles: rewriting the health care code and observance of the Cesar Chavez holiday.

The last contract said that the company would pay 100 percent of the employees' health insurance. If an employee wanted to add a family member, the company agreed to pay $250 for that person in addition to fully covering the employee, leaving the employee to pay for the remaining portion of the other family member's medical insurance.

According to Berlanga, Bon Appetit failed to follow through with this agreement and instead many employees were dropped from the health insurance plan while the company only contributed $250 to the total monthly cost.

Many workers were forced to quit the insurance plan due to rising costs, as well as having multiple family members on the plan.

Others were paying up to $1,000 a month for their health coverage, when the average Bon Appetit worker only makes around $1,600 a month. A grievance has already been filed through the SEIU union.

The lack of commitment to ensuring that Bon Appetit employees have sufficient health coverage is unacceptable because it forces a group of people who are already marginalized due to low-paying jobs to be placed in an even more precarious position.

The other pressing issue that the Bon Appetit employees are fighting for concerns their equitable right to observe Cahvez's birthday as a floating holiday. This is important because Chavez actually started union organizing in San Jose in the agricultural and food-service sectors. The employees were told they have to choose their hero. If they get Cesar Chavez day off then they have to give up the Martin Luther King holiday.

The union and employees have asked us, the students, to support them. Therefore, as students who have entered into a university that as one of their main tenets has a commitment to social justice, it is our responsibility to support the workers in any way we can.

After all, they are the hand that feeds us.

There will be a rally in support of the Bon Appetit employees on Friday, Oct. 22, at noon in the plaza between the Multicultural Center and the bookstore. Please attend and show your support.

*Josh Sbicca, Nina Jenkins and Stephanie Camoroda are members of the Santa Clara Community Action Program.