Convention Center servers cry foul as Aramark pockets their tips

About 130 union members and supporters rallied outside the Oregon Convention Center May 21 to show support for a group of union kitchen, banquet and concession workers employed there by contractor Aramark.

The 200-member group, members of Portland-based UNITE HERE Local 9, has been working under the terms of a contract that expired Aug. 31, 2009. Most members earn minimum wage but share the proceeds of a 20 percent gratuity charged to banquet users of the convention center. Workers say the gratuity can work out to $6 to $17 an hour. But management keeps about a quarter of the gratuity, says Local 9 Representative Shellea Allen, and uses only a fraction of it to pay for employee health insurance benefits.

“Are you tired of having your pocket picked?” Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain asked rally-goers.

Banquet servers like Laura Williams see it as illegitimate for management to take a cut of a service charge that banquet customers believe is going to workers.

In bargaining, the union is asking for raises totaling $1.25 an hour for non-tipped workers over the course of the proposed three-year contract, and 45 cents an hour for tipped workers. It’s also proposing to make health benefits available to more part-time workers. And it wants the employer to join the Lloyd Transportation Management Association, which would enable workers to get a substantially discounted bus pass.

Aramark has agreed to account for how it spends the gratuity, but also proposes to take a greater share of it.

“We’re not going to take it!” Williams declared to co-workers at the rally. “We’re not giving our service charge back.”

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