In the spring of 1998, as the Colleges solicited bids for a new food service company, workers and students raised concerns about the rights of workers under a new company: would they have job security, would their seniority be respected? Jack Stark, then president of CMC, and Chair of the Council of Presidents, assured the community that "The selection of Aramark as the new service provider was based on their proposal that included considerations for the future of current Marriott hourly staff...All Marriott hourly employees will be offered comparable positions at comparable pay and benefits with the Aramark service team..."

The following fall, Aramark proceeded to violate this community agreement. Several employees who had worked here for years had their hours significantly reduced, and, as result, were forced to find a second, or even third, job. The seniority of many employees was not respected.

Workers expressed numerous concerns not included in this community agreement.

Listen to the workers: "I have worked here for 10 years, full time, and I get $7 an hour." Another says that, "I work 30 hours a week, and get only minimum wage. So I have to work another job at a factory. I work seven days a week." Or listen to the single mom supporting three children: "I’ve worked here for 19 years. I’m paid $9.25/hr." There were, and are, issues beyond wages and benefits, such as a general lack of respect. At one dining hall, several workers were infuriated at a manager who repeatedly clapped at them to get their attention and spoke to them like children. Another manager called each black worker "boy."

Workers, like students, first went through the established channels to deal with these problems. Some specific complaints– mostly concerning the behavior of individual managers– were resolved. Other problems, particularly low wages, remain.

Frustrated at the ineffectiveness of official channels, some workers discussed other options, such as a union. Aramark responded with a systematic campaign of intimidation and harassment. Workers that had regularly spoken to students about workplace conditions were instructed not to talk to students.

Some were moved to positions where they would have less contact with students. Some were moved to other dining halls.

Several workers were required to attend one-on-one meetings with managers in which they were interrogated about their views on the union and told that under no circumstances would a union be allowed. On February 22 of this year, Aramark attached a letter to the paycheck of every worker which subtly misrepresented the union and stated that "joining a union can cost you your job." Think for just a moment about the climate of fear created by finding such a letter attached to your paycheck. How would you feel reading such a letter when you know that you could be fired, legally, at any time?

From the beginning, students had been in contact with workers; Worker Support Committee grew out of individual friendships and relationships with workers. Worker Support Committee has its origins in a lie, in a broken promise– the promise with which this piece began, the promise of the presidents that Aramark would respect workers’ rights. How often in the next year administrators would make similar promises; how often these would be nothing more than empty rhetoric.

Throughout the year, Worker Support Committee brought the concerns of workers (detailed above) to the attention of the presidents. WSC escalated tactics, which ranged from delivering letters from workers to presidents and meeting with presidents to protests and rallies. In the spring of 1999, 122 workers, 221 faculty members, and 2,670 students–a majority of students at the five colleges–signed petitions calling for better working conditions. The faculty petition asked for more specific measures–a Neutrality Agreement–designed to end intimidation of workers. After an entire year of organising efforts, of delegations, letters, protests, marches, and after a widely supported petition demanded concrete action, what did the presidents do? They issued a statement in support of workers’ legal rights.

A development two weeks ago may confirm yet again the presidents’ shameful failure to take responsibility for workers on their campuses. Three weeks ago, workers began distributing fliers about the union. Last week, managers told certain workers to provide papers verifying their legal right to work in the U.S. Many of these employees have worked on campus for years, some for more than a decade; Aramark never seemed concerned about papers during the first year it was on campus.

All of sudden, as union activity was increasing, Aramark wanted to see papers. We have been willing to suspend our knowledge of Aramark’s history of intimidation and grant that perhaps the two events are unrelated. Yet Aramark has proved incapable of giving us a coherent explanation: on November 8, Scott Parry, head of campus operations, claimed that the decision was not made at the local level but instead came from Aramark’s national management.

National headquarters in Philadelphia then denied ever having issued any such order. And now, on Tuesday, a PR firm hired by Aramark has provided yet another version, closer to that of Scott Parry. In light of Aramark’s past actions, and until Aramark can first decide which story it would like tell, and then provide a story consistent with what occurred, we can find no other plausible interpretation than that of anti-union intimidation.

If Aramark continues to be unable to provide a compelling reason for its actions, we will have yet another act of intimidation that could have been prevented. We will be faced with yet another indictment of the presidents’ failure to take concrete action to back up their rhetoric.

Had the presidents made clear to Aramark that intimidation on these campuses will not be tolerated, Aramark would never have considered asking for workers’ papers. And on the small chance that Aramark’s’ actions were not designed to silence workers, we will still stand behind workers, to fight a different battle– for immigrants’ rights.