Aramark workers find cheaper healthcare after a long struggle
by J.P. Lawrence
The deal was set. Signed and sealed. Bard College’s housekeepers, after a long, drawn-out labor struggle had finally hammered a contract agreement between them and their employers, Aramark, a service company out of Philadelphia, Pa.
The three-year agreement would give the employees family healthcare for $356 dollars a month, far below the $815 dollars a month initially proposed.
Among the other benefits were 3% pay raises retroactive to the expiration of the previous contract, a higher starting wage, and pay raises for 15 workers who would not have otherwise received them.
After nearly 15 months of haggling over wages and health care, the tempo of negotiations had increased, sped up after an offer by Bard College to pay whatever extra costs necessary to break the impasse.
So it was quite the shock to Zeke Perkins, head of Bard’s labor advocacy group, when he came back from break to find that the deal had been voted down, rejected 26-17, by the workers.
“It was frustrating because we didn’t really know what happened,” said Perkins, whose group, the Student Labor Dialogue, had been advocating on behalf of the workers since spring. “I thought the students have done as much as they can. They’ve pushed the college toward taking care of this. And why on Earth would they not like this healthcare?”
Like anything in Aramark’s 15-month negotiation with its workers, which included a student strike, threats, mudslinging and rumor-mongering, the end game would be anything but easy.
A Deal Maker
The end game began in early December, when the college administration had finally had enough. “I think it was the college’s desire to not let the impasse last forever,” recalled Jim Brudvig, Vice President for Administration, who oversees the college’s contract with Aramark. “It’s a difficult situation to have a contractor on your campus who can’t come to terms with the people who work here.
“Aramark said, ‘Listen, we’re not making any money here,” Brudvig continued. He explained that from Aramark’s perspective, stepping in to lower healthcare costs would mean loss. “At the same time, the healthcare plan – it’s ridiculous,” said Brudvig. “They can’t be making that hourly wage and pay 800 dollars a month for family healthcare.”
So with both sides deadlocked and exhausted, the buck fell to Executive Vice President Dimitri Papadimitriou, who picked up his phone and had “a serious talk” with Aramark officials, according to Brudvig. “He said, ‘if you’re serious about doing business here, get this thing done. I’ve heard enough, I want this thing settled. If it requires college resources, you gotta let me know.’”
Meanwhile, Lyons and the union had found another insurance policy under the same company that served the same options but was much cheaper. Armed with this and the backing of the school, the union head committee agreed to the deal on a Friday morning and arranged for the entire union to vote the following Tuesday, Feb. 11. And that’s when things went haywire.
Out in the Cold
“I think the union representative, who I think did a very good job in general, was very excited to get this contract done with after a year of negotiation,” said Perkins, “so he pushed for a vote.” The committee negotiated the contract on Friday, then schedule a vote for the following Tuesday. Perkins feels this was too rushed. “I think that the workers didn’t get educated.”
“Being that we spent 15 months campaigning, I thought everyone would know all the issues,” an incredulous Lyons argued. “And the committee signed off on it.”
As rumors swirled, Aramark corporate offices handed down an ultimatum: have a contract signed by the end of the month, or the retroactive pay increases the workers had won during bargaining would disappear.
“Basically,” said Aramark worker Annette Coons, “they’re telling us, ‘you vote yes, or you lose it all.’”
As the month neared its end, union representatives arranged a meeting with an insurance broker to allay concerns over cost and coverage - but a winter ice storm prevented the meeting from ever taking place. With the contract stuck in a holding pattern until the agent made it in, Aramark workers were left out in the cold.
The Counting of the Votes
In the early morning hours of Jan. 27, from 6:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m, before most of Bard’s students were even awake, Bard’s housekeepers walked by the little box, set up by the time clock at Aramark’s Bard office, that would determine their immediate financial futures.
The union had brought in the insurance representative, and now they were having their re-vote, just days before the deadline. If the morning’s vote was yes, their 15-month struggle would be over, and they would have healthcare. If the vote was no, “I don’t even know,” said Coons.
One minute past eight, Lyons opened up the boxes and started counting. “I wasn’t sure if it was going to pass. You never know these things for sure,” he recalled. Sorting through the slips of paper, he counted: 30-12, the vote passes. Relief, he said, was the emotion he felt then.
For the Aramark workers gathered for the counting of the votes, relief came with the knowledge that they could now afford insurance for their children. “It was really a great feeling,” said Jody Cerasano, a housekeeper with two children. “It felt like the world was totally off my shoulders.”
“This is what we wanted from the beginning,” said Lyons. “Healthcare is going up everywhere, so it’s hard to get a deal that’s actually affordable. So this, under the contract negotiations, is a really good deal. It went down to probably $350 a month, instead of $815. That’s a really big difference.”
As for Brudvig, he received an email from Aramark simply stating that the deal was done. Although insurance premiums are not effective until March 1, he said there is a chance the deal, as currently constructed, won’t need the college’s money at all.
“To my knowledge,” Brudvig said, ”the plan that they developed doesn’t involve any contributions from the college. They were able to find room in the contract to be able to do everything that they needed to do.
“What it really means for the employees of Aramark is that they’re getting their back wages paid,” Brudvig continued. “Because they had been out of contract for a while, so they’re getting retroactive money for the increases that they are now getting. Presumably Aramark is busy issuing catch-up checks.”
While giving due credit to Lyons, Aramark, and the college for breaking the long impasse, Brudvig also lauded the students of the SLD for their contribution. “I give them a lot of credit for keeping it on the table, keeping it alive, making sure it wasn’t forgotten.”
As for the SLD, they are moving swiftly on to the next cause. “I’m very happy that it was signed,” said Perkins. “I’m very happy that we can maybe move on to some other things.” In particular, Perkins wants an expansion of the code of conduct Bard created for subcontractors in 2008.
Lyons, too, wants to continue his union work on campus. “I’ve always had that in the back of my head to come here and support what the students are doing. I think it’s about building a movement. There are other workers on campus that need our support....it’s more than this one issue.”
As for the workers themselves, their period of uncertainty is over. The contract is signed, and workers like Cerasano can now bring their children to the doctor. With her retroactive pay now in her bank account, Cerasano said she plans to ditch her dying truck and make another deal: a down payment for a new truck, for navigating the New York winter.
“I’m actually really thrilled,” she said. “I think we did a tremendous job. We’re getting raises. We’ve got the affordable insurance.”