Share the convention wealth
THE BOSTON Convention & Exhibition Center on Summer Street is starting to make its presence felt, besting event records for attendees, hotel room rates, and economic impact. But the banquet servers, dishwashers, and other food service workers who make the center hum are not sharing in the abundance.
Last night members of Local 26 of the union UNITE HERE authorized a strike against Aramark Corp., the Philadelphia-based multinational company that provides food service to BCEC and the Hynes Convention Center. Few of the roughly 300 Aramark food service works receive employee benefits, according to Local 26 president Janice Loux. It is time, she says, that workers receive a "fair shake."
For some years, there were too few conventions to warrant more than a sparse staff of casual or temporary food workers. But as business increased, more than 100 workers met the union's threshold for health and other benefits, according to Loux. Yet the state-owned convention center and contractor Aramark still treat these workers like they are just passing through.
There is no justification for withholding benefits from workers at the waterfront and Hynes convention centers while fellow members of Local 26 who perform similar jobs on similar schedules at nearby unionized hotels receive health, housing, life insurance, and other benefits.
Aramark sees the strike threat as less about benefits for a few dozen workers in Boston and more about reinforcing the union's national effort to force a "card check neutrality agreement" with the company. Such agreements favor unions by allowing them to organize workers by gaining signatures on cards, rather than by secret ballot.
That is a separate issue and should be decided on its own merits. Right now, it looks more like a group of workers are waiting for some well-deserved benefits. 