Re: Faculty open letter to President Petter regarding food service workers at SFU

[Enda Brophy <ebrophy@sfu.ca>]

Hello Paul,

Sodexo has publicly suggested it will be offering employment to the workers as you point out, but there are no specifics as of yet. These were to be discussed at the meeting company representatives did not show up for. More importantly, the company has not said anything about maintaining the workers’ current collective agreement, or recognizing their union. As our letter suggests, all of this could have been avoided had SFU required that successorship be part of the contract. 

So, as of yet there is no confirmation of continuity of employment for food services workers as far as I can tell. But even this confirmation, should it arrive, would be a fairly low bar to set for the new employer. Workers are demanding continuity not only of employment, but of representation and of their collective agreement. 

Enda Brophy
Assistant Professor
School of Communication
Simon Fraser University

> On Mar 13, 2017, at 5:26 PM, Paul W. Percival <percival@sfu.ca> wrote:
> 
> Dear Enda
> 
> Could we have some facts please?
> 
> I see from your letter that the food service workers have received termination notices.  I assume that this is standard practice when one contractor (Chartwell) no longer has the contract to provide services. The workers naturally want to maintain their jobs, which means they need to be offered positions by the new contractor, Sodexo. Is that not the case? According to the SFU News announcement of the new food contract (February 27):
> 
> "Because of their knowledge and skills, we intend to offer existing dining services hourly staff positions equivalent to their current jobs, at current or better wage rates.”
> (Quotation attributed to Bill Keith, vp operations of Sodexo Canada)
> 
> Has anything changed? You letter mentions that representatives of Sodexo failed to show up for a meeting. This no doubt caused vexation, even distress or alarm for the workers, but without knowing the reason why this meeting failed to take place I don't know how to interpret it.
> 
> Can you enlighten us? Is Sodexo withdrawing, or threatening to withdraw, their assurance of continuity of employment for the SFU food services workers?
> 
> Yours sincerely
> 
> Paul Percival
> 
> 
> 
> On 13/03/2017 4:49 PM, Enda Brophy wrote:
>> Dear colleagues,
>> 
>> Faculty members from a number of departments across the university have signed the attached open letter to President Petter asking him to intervene on behalf of 160 food service workers who have been laid off as a result of the contract for food service provision being awarded to Sodexo. The workers are asking the university and Sodexo for their jobs, their union, and their contract. The letter was delivered to President Petter this morning.
>> 
>> We are still gathering signatures for the letter, so please let me know if you want your name added.
>> 
>> Take care,
>> 
>> Enda Brophy
>> Assistant Professor
>> School of Communication
>> Simon Fraser University
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> -- 
> Dr Paul Percival
> Professor of Chemistry
> Simon Fraser University and TRIUMF
> percival@sfu.ca
> percival@triumf.ca
> http://chemistry.sfu.ca/people/profiles/percival
> 
> ---
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
>