Sodexo Workers Started a Union in Kentucky, Here's What Happened
After working for 9 years in a kitchen at St. Joseph’s hospital in London, KY, Brandon Partin had finally reached a point where he wondered if it was a hopeless endeavor to even continue to work there. About 5 years earlier, Sodexo, one of the world’s largest companies, took over kitchen operations and each year had become worse than the last.
Things like favoritism and non-existent raises had brought them to the point where they had to borrow workers from other facilities just to run the operation. Brandon searched Facebook for help and found the United Food and Commercial Workers page. He thought he would “give it a shot in the dark” and DM’d the page.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I reached out to the union, I just knew things could be better,” said Brandon Partin. “I’m glad I reached out. Learning about what the union could do for me was eye opening and it’s made my life better.”
That day Brandon received a phone call from UFCW 227 organizer Dave Villegas. They talked about what it was like to work for Sodexo and what could be changed for the better. Dave offered to come to London, KY to meet with some of Brandon’s co-workers who might be interested in getting a union at work.
During the first meeting, there were lots of questions to be answered. What can the union do for us? What are the next steps? With help from Dave, Brandon and his co-workers formed committee that would try to talk to people at work about starting a union in Kentucky. Dave gave them authorization cards for their co-workers to fill out stating their support to have a secret ballot election to choose if they were going to be represented by the union.
After a majority of people filled out cards to support having an election, UFCW 227 filed official paperwork with the National Labor Relations Board to set an election date of July 31, 2019.
Dave held several more meetings for anyone interested in learning more about being represented by a union. At each meeting the committee of co-workers brought more and more people. They talked about everything going on at work and Dave gave them the facts about some misleading or false things companies like to say to persuade employees not to start a union.
At work, some of the supervisors started holding mandatory meetings to talk about the union. “Dave told us exactly what they were going to say about the union and he was spot on,” said Brandon. “They told us that we could actually end up with less wages and benefits than we currently had if we voted for union representation and I finally had to ask.” Brandon asked if it was true that in order to get less wages and benefits (they) the workers would have to vote to accept less. He never got an answer. What Dave had prepared them for in their organizing meetings had come true. And coincidentally, Brandon was never invited to another mandatory meeting.
On July, 31, 2019, Brandon and his co-workers voted to form a union at their job. Now it was time to bargain their first union contract. In negotiations Brandon and his co-workers with, the support of their union, worked for and won:
· Guaranteed raises for every employee for the next 3 years
· Job Security – the company has to prove they have a reason to discipline or fire anyone
· Time and a half pay for working on holidays
· Additional raises as a reward longevity with the company at 10, 15 and 20 years
· Getting a shift meal back that had been recently taken away
The union brought ideas to Brandon and his co-workers that they had never even thought of, like, a safety committee and a labor/management committee made up of union members and management, both designed to solve problems before they became a big deal. Through these committees, union members are now part of the discussions about things like scheduling, instead of being told those conversations are happening somewhere else.
In December of 2019, Brandon and his co-workers voted to approve their first union contract in a secret ballot election.