Students from Tech's chapter of United Students Against
Sweatshops met with campus representatives of the fast food chain Au Bon Pain
last week, after the national chain denied a labor organization request from
workers at the Philadelphia Airport branch.
The meeting was one of eight on Jan. 28 between chapters
of USAS and on-campus ABP franchises at universities across the U.S., including
Northeastern University, George Washington University, University of
Illinois-Chicago, Rutgers, Vanderbilt, Duke and Brown University.
The project, No Bon Pain, is a national consumer
education campaign led by UNITE HERE, a labor union that represents 270,000
working people across industries within North America, according to the union's
website.
Diego Parra, communications specialist of UNITE HERE,
said that the union has been in a labor dispute with the ABP at Philadelphia
Airport for over six months, since the branch's employees first requested the
ability to form a labor union.
“Au Bon Pain’s immediate response was to not allow them,”
Parra said. “In fact, they discouraged the employees from getting involved in
any union activities.”
According to Paula Doyle, vice president of Marketing for
Au Bon Pain, in the franchise’s 37-year history, the company has never had a
“unionized cafe.”
“What (food service workers) asked ABP to do is demand
that we agree to unionize, but they wanted us to do so without any vote with a
National Labor Relations board,” Doyle said. “That is something that we would
not agree to.”
Parra said that the workers would receive work-related
benefits from joining UNITE HERE.
“If Au Bon Pain were to allow their workers to join us,
UNITE HERE would be able to represent the employees as a bargaining unit,”
Parra said. “This would allow employees to negotiate wages, health care
options, sicks days, etc.”
Doyle said that the Au Bon Pain is
"disappointed" in UNITE HERE’s campaign, which has spread to eight
college campuses.
"This is really an issue all about what is going on
at Philadelphia Airport. It really doesn’t have anything to do with Virginia
Tech or other universities," Doyle said.
Senior sociology major and USAS member Claire Wiklund was
one of the students who approached ABP’s management staff in Squires Student
Center last week to express that “the Hokies aren’t going to support a business
that isn't treating their workers right,” she said.
“What we’re asking is the Au Bon Pain managers at
Virginia Tech and all over the country talk to corporate and pressure them for
fair wages and to respect the employees,” Wiklund said. “Especially at the Au
Bon Pain where this campaign started in Philadelphia.”
The uniform letter given to the on-campus ABP management
staffs at the eight university locations stated that the students are there “in
solidarity with food service workers who are standing up for their workplace.”
Quoted in the letter is food service employee Roselise
Eugene, stating that she has worked at Au Bon Pain at Philadelphia Airport for
two and a half years, but “with Au Bon Pain’s low wages, I can’t afford my
basic needs.”
The letter concludes stating that until the fast food
franchise “cleans up its act," students do not believe that Au Bon Pain
should profit from their campus community.
In response, the Tech management staff told the students
that they would take their complaints to the corporate manager, according to
Bill Foy, director of Communications and Innovative Technologies for the
Division of Student Affairs.
However, Foy said the incident that occurred at
Philadelphia Airport has little connection to the Au Bon Pain restaurants on
campus.
“We understand that a small number of students stopped by
our ABP locations to speak with our managers there. They by all accounts had
good discussions and that’s really all there was to it,” Foy said.
According to Wiklund, Virginia Tech has one of the
highest grossing Au Bon Pain chains in the country. Because the franchise has
such a prominent presence on campus, Tech’s USAS branch was contacted to get
involved in the No Bon Pain campaign.
“We’re really working with UNITE HERE on this project and
taking direction from them,” Wiklund said. “If they are moving forward to
escalate on different college campuses, we’re definitely prepared to ask for
more support from students that don’t feel comfortable supporting worker
abuse.”
Sokona Diallo, a sophomore psychology major at
Northeastern University who also took part in the “national day of action”
against Au Bon Pain management last week, reflected upon her experience working
for the fast food franchise.
“For me, this campaign has a lot of meaning. Over the
summer I got hired as a cashier by Au Bon Pain,” Diallo said. "It was by
far the worst job I ever worked.”
According to Diallo, the pay and working conditions were
unfair and the management treated Diallo and her co-workers “without any
regards to their well being, let alone basic rights,” she said.
However, the students at Northeastern University have
additional reasons to take a special interest in this campaign. Au Bon Pain
President and CEO Susan Morelli is also a member of the Corporation of
Northeastern University, a board whose purpose is to “create and translate
knowledge to meet global and societal needs,” according to the university’s
website. Also, on the Au Bon Pain Board of Directors is Henry Nasella, the
Chair of the Northeastern Board of Trustees.
When UNITE HERE was notified of the incident at
Philadelphia Airport, the organization began looking into Au Bon Pain’s history
to gather not only information of the treatment of their workers but also with
a focused interest on the franchise’s promise of being a nutritional brand – an
investigation that led to the development of the No Bon Pain campaign.
In its brand promise, Au Bon Pain says that customers can
expect “flavorful, healthful, fresh and distinctively delicious food and
beverages” with “high quality and ‘good for you’ ingredients.”
Parra said that some of Au Bon Pain’s food and beverage
selections are no healthier than those at fast food chains.
On the No Bon Pain campaign site, UNITE HERE writes that
the Au Bon Pain Veggie Hummus Wrap contains 670 calories, 1,170 milligrams of
sodium and 9 grams of saturated fat. This is compared to the nutritional facts
listed of a McDonald’s Big Mac, which contains 530 calories, 960 milligrams of
sodium and 10 grams of saturated fat.
According to Doyle, the serving sizes used to compare
these two food items does not accurately portray the nutritional value of the
meals.
“They’re comparing something that is twice as big to
something that is half its size, which you can’t do to make a fair comparison.
And that’s really the issue, when you try to compare ... the quality of food,”
Doyle said. "I think you’d see that their numbers don’t really make
sense.”
Caroline Apovian, Director of Nutrition and Weight
Management Center at Boston Medical Center and a member of the Au Bon Pain
Nutrition Advisory Board, also disagrees with UNITE HERE’s stance that Au Bon
Pain is not the healthy franchise that they promote themselves to be.
“I’m on the nutrition board for other restaurant chains
as well,” Apovian said. “ABP has been the most receptive to my recommendations,
as well as those of the other members of the board.”
Apovian said that she is “not sure where UNITE HERE is
coming from” with this campaign, explaining that Au Bon Pain is always open to
suggestions from their nutrition board on ways to increase the health options
on the menu. This is true even when such changes come at a cost, Apovian said,
explaining that Au Bon Pain took her suggestion of adding flax seeds to their
whole grain loaves.
“Flax seeds are expensive, especially when adding them to
all of their breads,” Apovian said. “I don’t really agree with what UNITE HERE
is saying about the nutritional aspects of their menu.”
When planning out Au Bon Pain's menu, food scientists and
dietitians conduct research into the nutrition behind the franchise’s food and
beverage options. This information can then be found on the nutrition kiosks
within the restaurant.
“We offer a lot of healthy choices, and we’re really
proud of the recognition we’ve received for being healthy,” Doyle said.
On Jan. 6, 2015, Au Bon Pain was named the healthiest
chain restaurant in the country by Grellin Grade, a site made by nutrition
expert Lenny Lesser that uses “publicly available data on restaurant food to
determine which restaurants have the healthiest menus," the website says.
Doyle said that although she is not aware of any requests
being made by students to Au Bon Pain’s corporate management for better
treatment of the company’s employees, that does not mean that they haven't been
sent.
“What’s happening now is UNITE HERE is really choosing to
disparage our product online, and they’re doing it to gain our cooperation,”
Doyle said.
Doyle maintains that the incident that occurred at the
Philadelphia Airport Au Bon Pain has no correlation to the company’s college
locations.
“We find it rather confusing because they’re really
trying to harm our company that they want their members to join,” Doyle said.
“So for us, it’s a little bit of a disconnect.”
Source: Collegiate
Times
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