Sick leave at risk for school food workers

If you are a worker and you get sick, you shouldn’t have to come to work due to a lack of pay or loss of sick days. This should be an even a higher priority for workers that handle food.

During ongoing contract negotiations between the cafeteria workers of the Wallingford/Swarthmore School District and Nutrition Inc., the outsourced provider for food service operations for the district, Nutrition Inc. has proposed lumping sick time and personal time into Paid Time Off days or PTO. This is a common practice, but what’s uncommon is the corporation’s desire to cut these days from nine days over the course of a 10-month school year to three.

Think about it. Over the course of a 180day school year, these workers, who have the primary responsibility to handle and prepare the food eaten by hundreds of students each day of the school year, may be forced to come to work when they are sick because of this harsh proposal by Nutrition Inc. As negotiations continue, Nutrition Inc. must seriously consider what they are asking of the workforce.

Working in a school building where kids are routinely sick with a cold or something worse creates an even greater risk for food service workers. It seems like a no brainer to give workers the sick leave they need so that they are healthy when preparing food for kids at school.

If that isn’t enough of an issue, Nutrition Inc. has cut the hours of the food service department’s cleaner to save a few dollars. This leaves no one to handle cleaning the floors and sanitary spaces in the kitchens. Everyone supports working more efficiently and saving dollars when possible, but cutting a cleaner’s hours so that no one is there to do basic cleaning work after serving hundreds of kids is simply unacceptable.

The negotiations are ongoing, and Nutrition Inc. has been working with the union in many ways. We are making progress, but when it comes to sending food service staff to work when they are sick, Nutrition Inc. must recognize that what’s best for students, staff and these workers is to rest up and come back to work heathy.

If this issue upsets you, then we ask that you come to the Monday, November 12 school board meeting and let local officials know that we need clean and sanitary conditions when preparing lunches for our kids at school. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the Strathaven Middle School Library.

“Working in a school building where kids are routinely sick with a cold or something worse creates an even greater risk for food service workers.”

— Genay Costa