'Lunch Ladies' need you

By JIM OLDHAM

Published on May 16, 2008

Last month, I asked whether management of town government should be guided by values a community or a corporation. Last week, Town Meeting emphatically chose to emphasize community values: responsibility to neighbors, valuing fairness and honesty along with the bottom line, and believing that satisfied, committed and respected workers in our schools adds value that may be invisible on short-term balance sheets.

By a vote of nearly 2 to 1, Town Meeting took the unprecedented step of postponing discussion of the school budgets for two weeks as a way of urging the School Committee to reconsider the decision to privatize food service workers' jobs. The vote was a huge victory for the lunch ladies and a strong challenge to the unfair process through which their positions have been put at risk.

However, it was only a procedural vote relating to the timing of the budget discussion. The vote made the workers' plight more visible and increased pressure on the School Committee to do the right thing, but it did not in itself change anything. Only the School Committee can reverse the decision to privatize the lunch ladies' jobs, and only the citizens of Amherst, Pelham, Leverett and Shutesbury can - through calls, letters and speaking out - convince them to do so.

Why should we care? Well, for one thing, it's simply indecent to treat our workers this way; taking so much from those who receive so little.

For another, a promise was made. Five years ago the School Committee hired an outside contractor to manage the elementary and regional school cafeterias. At that time, a school administration memo to the lunch ladies promised them that: "We wish to assure each of you, our highly dedicated food service employees, that your positions are secure and that you will continue to be direct employees of the school district."

Although a decision was made, for good or ill, to have a private corporation feed our kids, long-time food service workers were being told that their many years of service were respected and they could count on keeping their status, their benefits, their retirement plans. Then, with no prior public debate, the administration changed its tune and decided unilaterally to break this promise and use this year's search for a new vendor as an opportunity to outsource these jobs. This decision would mean lower incomes, worse health and retirement benefits, and greater job insecurity for those who are already the lowest paid employees in the school.

A belief in treating workers fairly and a sense of our obligation to keep promises are two good reasons to care. There are, however, good, selfish reasons as well. Our lunch ladies, with their average of 17 years of service to the district, know our children. They know their allergies and dietary restrictions and make sure, individually and by name, that the students get the foods they need. For parents, this is extremely reassuring. The presence of a consistent, known and reliable workforce in the schools contributes to overall security as well, in ways that could very easily avoid significant future monetary and non-monetary costs but are hard to document in simple budgetary terms.

One of the especially disturbing aspects of this process has been decision-makers unwillingness to admit the harm that their proposal does to the food service workers. We are asked to believe the unbelievable, that outsourcing the jobs will save the schools money yet the privatized jobs will still offer pay and benefits equivalent to what the workers get now. How does that work?

It is equally disturbing to be told that there has been a public process leading up to this decision. Here, we are being asked to believe the impossible. Supposedly the decision to outsource the jobs drew on input from a Food Service Committee of School Committee members and community volunteers; supposedly it was informed by the results of a survey of parents and students. But the workers were asked to sign severance packages back in November, just about the same time the committee was formed, and months before the survey was even written.

One final point: Why did Dr. Hochman oppose the participation of food service workers in the Food Service Committee? Would we have a curriculum committee without teachers? A finance committee without financial experts?

If these questions concern you, please call or write School Committee members. Contact information is at http://www.arps.org/hss/arps/School_Committee_Directory.jsp or available from the Superintendent's office (362-1810). There was a public discussion of these issues at the School Committee meeting Thursday in the High School library and coming up at Town Meeting on May 21, 7:30 p.m. in the Middle School auditorium.

Jim Oldham, Town Meeting member from Precinct 5, does environmental justice work in Massachusetts and Ecuador.