[Peace-discuss] Open Letter to the Community About the Building and Food Service Workers' Picket

[Robert Naiman]

*Central Illinois Jobs with Justice

Open Letter to the Community
About the Building and Food Service Workers' Picket*



The building and food service workers at the University of Illinois are
committed to serving the University community. But despite their efforts to
negotiate with the University administration, *the University administration
has refused to bargain in good faith*. By frustrating the employees' efforts
to negotiate, the University administration is showing a lack of concern not
only about the building and food service workers, but about the services
that they provide the University community.



The building and food service workers are campus workers who clean dorms,
prepare and serve cafeteria food, empty trash, clean bathrooms, shovel snow,
and salt sidewalks in order to make other work on campus happen comfortably
and safely. *For the past nine months*, building and food service workers
have been trying to negotiating a fair contract with the University
administration, but *the University administration* *has* *refused to
cooperate*.



The building and food service workers want job security and protection from
job erosion. The University is increasingly using temporary workers and
student labor rather than paying full time workers. *Temporary workers have
no union rights and no benefits* and they lack the training and experience
required to provide the best services.



Food service workers make about $15,000 per year, *$7000 below the poverty
level for a family of four*. Their income is further limited by the fact
that they are laid off during each University break, which means they only
work about seven months of the year. During these times, they do not qualify
for unemployment, and keep paying their insurance premiums.



*State workers do not earn Social Security*.  Their pensions are their
social security, but the State has “borrowed” from the money that workers
pay in, creating a debt that the State now complains it can’t pay.



SEIU presented its full set of proposals for consideration in June, but in
March the University was still asking for new concessions. SEIU Local 73,
the union for building and food service workers, has had to file four unfair
labor practice charges against the University for failing to negotiate over
employee benefits and job security.



On January 27th, the building and food service workers overwhelmingly voted
to strike if necessary.  The union has made every effort to compromise with
the University.  *But due to the University’s failure to bargain in good
faith, service workers plan to strike on Monday, April 18.*



*We urge community members to show support for the building and food service
workers by honoring and attending union picket lines, and by communicating
to University officials and to the news media that the building and food
service workers have community support and that the University
Administration should bargain in good faith so that the employees can get a
fair contract.*
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