UNITE HERE Local 274 announced on Tuesday that it had reached a tentative agreement with Aramark that will cover the company’s operations at all three Philadelphia stadiums! This would, for the first time, provide healthcare benefits for year-round work and family sustaining wage increases for workers. Last year, workers at all three Philly stadiums—Wells Fargo Center, Citizens Bank Park and Lincoln Financial Field—went out on strike multiple times, calling for a new contract. Workers are voting to ratify the new agreement in the coming days.
“We fought hard for this contract. No department was left behind. We stuck together and that’s why we were able to set a new standard for Aramark workers and stadium workers,” said Sam Spector, who works as a club attendant and bartender at all three buildings. “I went years without health insurance. This is a big deal that stadium food service workers will be able to qualify for healthcare.”
Overcoming the deep and historic inequality in New Haven, where life expectancy varies by 10 years between neighborhoods, requires that residents from all neighborhoods have access to good union jobs. That’s where a coalition of UNITE HERE locals and community and political ally organization New Haven Rising comes in. Together, they have long focused on creating the best jobs in the region and ensuring these jobs are accessible to all New Haven residents.
In 2015, New Haven Rising and Locals 34 and 35 won a commitment from Yale University to hire 1,000 New Haven residents, with 500 of the hires coming from low-income neighborhoods. Two years later, Yale was not on track to meet its commitment, so New Haven Rising and the locals launched a new jobs campaign.
Through this campaign, Local 35 developed apprenticeship programs for service and maintenance jobs. Local 34 won hiring pathways to clerical and technical jobs for low-income members of New Haven Works—the organization set up by the City of New Haven’s Board of Alders, New Haven Rising, and the locals to place city residents into good jobs—in its CBA.
Yet Yale still dragged its feet, failing to fill the Local 34 pathways for two years. The local began urging departments to hire locally and pressing Yale to take lessons on local hiring from Local 34’s own successes in placing laid-off members into new jobs.
As we know, when we fight, we win! Yale is now filling the pathways every year. Since its founding, New Haven Works has placed 2,053 New Haven residents into jobs. 80% of placements have been people of color and 53% are residents of low-income neighborhoods. The value of the good jobs in salary and benefits to placed workers and their families living in targeted neighborhoods is estimated to be over $70 million per year.
New Haven Works went from placing 27% of all Yale’s Local 34 clerical and technical New Haven hires in 2022 to placing 45% of these hires in 2024. For residents of New Haven’s low-income neighborhoods, New Haven Works went from placing 38% of all Yale’s Local 34 clerical and technical hires in 2022 to placing 56% of these hires in 2024.
Shawnda Jenkins, Medical Assistant and Local 34 Member, said: “Before I came to Yale, I worked 10 or 11 hours a day with no breaks and no benefits. I wasn’t all the way qualified to get into Yale, so I got into the On-the-Job Training Program through New Haven Works. Through this pathway I was hired into a regular position in Ophthalmology. Now I have a career, a future, and benefits for myself and my family.”
On February 21st, workers at St. Anselm voted to join Local 25. Instead of recognizing the result of the election, STARR Restaurants filed objections, claiming that the NLRB lacks authority to certify union elections when there is not a quorum of NLRB members. There is not a quorum because Trump fired a member of the labor board in January.
Between STARR’s objection to the election at St. Anselm where workers won the union, their interference in the Pastis election, and their cancellation of the election at Le Diplomate, it’s clear that STARR does not respect free and fair NLRB elections. Workers have been outside other STARR restaurants as well, holding picket lines at Osteria Mozza Restaurant and The Occidental Restaurant to let the public know that there is no union contract at either.
On March 4, UNITE HERE Local 217 announced that it had won a new contract for its members working in New Haven Public Schools. Workers had been fighting for good raises that would allow them to pay bills and provide for their families. The victory came after nine months of negotiations—including a chilly picket line earlier this year outside the Board of Education—and includes a $6 raise over four years.
“They gave us what we wanted, and I’m thankful for it,” said Betty Alford, a lead cook at Truman School. “I’m so grateful for it. I can do more things now, with this raise. I can buy more things now, because, before you’d have to penny pinch everything.”
On March 10, about 500 cooks, cashiers, baristas, dishwashers and catering workers employed by Compass Group at Northwestern University walked out on strike! Workers have been without a contract for six months. They’re calling for a new contract with family-sustaining wages and increased pension contributions. It is the first-ever strike of contracted food service and hospitality workers at Northwestern.
“We don’t want [the students] to suffer for the closure of the dining halls. But we don’t have another way to fight with the company for a better life for all of us.” said Veronica Reyes, a 15-year cashier for Compass at Northwestern.
Local 40 members at the Radisson Blu Vancouver Airport Hotel have won their 1,411-day strike! Over the weekend, workers voted 93% to ratify a new agreement that sets a new standard for hotel workers in the Metro Vancouver area.
In the face of pandemic-era terminations, dozens of Radisson Blu (formerly Pacific Gateway) room attendants, front desk agents, cooks, dishwashers, servers, baristas, housemen and maintenance workers chose to be brave, sacrificing their own livelihoods by walking out on strike on May 3, 2021. They demanded that their co-workers who were terminated during the pandemic be reinstated to their jobs and fought rollbacks in wages and working conditions.
- Achievements of the new collective agreement include:
- All workers terminated during the pandemic have the right to return based on seniority.
- The highest hotel wages in Vancouver Airport/Richmond market.
- No rollbacks on wages, benefits, or working conditions.
- Daily room cleaning.
- Unlimited recall protections in the event of a pandemic, emergency or renovations, and other job security protections.
“I feel great about our new contract,” said Jillan Louie, a server and Local 40 striker who has worked at the hotel since 1991. “I’m so proud that we stuck together and fought together. Even though it took a hell of a long time to get here, we stood up for what we believed in… Without the Union, we wouldn’t have won our jobs back or gotten a better contract.”
