Aramark Workers Launch National Tour to Probe Impact of Corporate Giant’s Business Practices on America’s Communities

Aramark%20Rally.jpg Houston—With a growing number of communities nationwide raising concerns about the business and workplace practices of food service giant Aramark, four current and former Aramark employees are launching a national tour today to learn more about the corporation’s impact on America’s communities. The workers—janitors and food service workers—will travel coast-to-coast to meet with parents, community leaders, and fellow Aramark workers in cities including Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.

 

Six Things You Should Know About Aramark

 

1) Aramark is everywhere

Across the country, thousands of schools, universities, hospitals, nursing homes, stadiums, convention centers, recreational venues, correctional facilities, and private companies outsource food and facilities management services to the Philadelphia-based corporation. As an industry leader, Aramark helps set standards for the entire service sector.

2) Aramark Impacts America’s Communities

A growing number of communities nationwide are raising concerns about the business and workplace practices of food service giant Aramark, the largest U.S.-based provider of outsourced food and facility services in the world, with 250,000 global employees.

  • From 2005 to 2007 county health inspectors in Anaheim, Calif. logged 118 vermin violations, including 33 “major” violations, and observed “rodent activity” at 18 stadium kiosks and restaurants at Angels Stadium, where Aramark serves food to millions of baseball fans each season. (link to food safety)
  • In one suburban Chicago school, Aramark workers have denounced short staffing, which makes it often impossible to serve wholesome food, leaving nutritious fruits and vegetables to go to waste. (link to nutrition)
  • As the food service provider for cash-strapped Detroit Public Schools, in one year alone, Aramark failed to pass on volume discounts totaling $1.3 million, as required by federal regulations. (link to responsible use of taxpayer money)
  • Workers at Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center are forced to make ends meet on as little as $6.30 an hour with few, if any benefits. (link to good jobs with health care)

3) Aramark Drives the Service Sector, Which Drives the American Economy.

In recent years there has been an explosion of poverty-wage, no-benefit, no-future jobs in America. Most of these jobs have been in the service sector, which now accounts for 80% of economic activity in the United States. If the American economy is to be robust, American working families need good jobs with health care so they can pay the bills, visit the doctor, save for college, buy a house, and have a dignified retirement. Aramark must do its part to make America strong.

4) Aramark Used To Be Public. Now It’s Private. That Matters.

Last year, Aramark’s stakeholders—workers, clients, customers, and community members—were the victims of Wall Street’s private-equity buyout trend, one of the most powerful economic forces hurting American workers. Such buyouts typically enrich insiders while forcing companies to take on huge amounts of debt, creating pressure to cut corners on quality of services and worker compensation. Watch this video on YouTube.

5) Aramark Still Has A Choice: Private Privilege or Public Prosperity.

Aramark—which took in more than $12.4 billion in revenue last year—relies on communities to generate income. Naturally, Aramark has a responsibility to help maintain and strengthen every community where it does business.

Since 2005, thousands of workers employed by Aramark, the largest U.S.-based food service provider in the world, have been forming unions so they can win a voice on the job to effectively advocate for food safety, good nutrition, responsible use of taxpayer dollars, and the good jobs with health care that America’s communities need.

During this time, Aramark supervisors have vigorously discouraged workers from supporting their union. And since last year—when Aramark CEO Joseph Neubauer led a private equity buyout that saddled the company with $2 billion in debt—Aramark has grown more aggressive in its refusal to help workers raise standards by intimidating, disciplining, and even firing workers who are coming together to win a voice on the job. Last year Aramark’s private equity owners like Goldman and Sachs paid its two co-presidents each $67.5 million dollars a year in total compensation. Workers, elected officials, religious leaders, and community supporters throughout the country believe that Aramark—whose CEO’s stock holdings jumped to nearly $1 billion at the time of the buyout—should not balance its ledger on the backs of our nation’s communities.

6) Aramark Workers Are Fighting to Help Communities Prosper Through Good Jobs With Health Care and Quality Services.

Aramark workers are seeking the freedom to form unions—without management interference—so that they can have a fair way to work toward the good jobs and quality services that our communities need. They need your support.