CSUMB Cafeteria Workers Choose Union

UNITE HERE! Local 483
www.unitehere483.org

Monday, April 9, 2007

CSUMB CAFETERIA WORKERS CHOOSE UNION
CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS BEGIN NEXT MONTH

SEASIDE - Cafeteria workers at Cal State University Monterey Bay, employees of Sodexho USA, have joined the local hotel and restaurant workers' union, UNITEHERE! Local 483. The 40-worker unit chose Local 483 through a “card check” process, similar to that outlined in the Employee Free Choice Act approved by the US House of Representatives last month. Maryland-based Sodexho USA has recognized the union and has agreed to contract bargaining at the beginning of May.

“I joined the union to make a better life for my family. I know that together we are stronger,” said cafeteria worker Rosa Resendiz, a mother of four. “We have the union at my other job at the Pebble Beach Lodge, so for fair pay, good benefits, and respect on the job, I knew the union was the way to go here at CSUMB. Look at the professors! They just got a great contract through their union,” commented kitchen worker Juan Contreras. Area hotel workers were centrally involved in the Local 483 organizing campaign at CSUMB. Workers like Lilia Vasquez, a Lobby Porter at the Park Hyatt Carmel Highlands, took time off from their jobs to talk with the cafeteria workers about the benefits of a union. “I knocked on their doors and sat with them in their homes. We talked about how hard it is to get by in the Monterey area, and how through the union we can make things better together.”

Sodexho USA has scheduled contract negotiations with the Union bargaining committee on May 2nd and 3rd. The company is a subsidiary of Sodexho Alliance, based in France, a member of the Fortune “Global 500” list of the world's largest corporations. Founded in 1937, UNITEHERE Local 483 represents 1,600 Monterey Bay area hospitality workers at two dozen hotels, restaurants, cafeterias, and golf courses.

For more information, please see: www.unitehere483.org