Mayo Clinic Outsourcing Leaves Food Workers ‘Betrayed’

July 29, 2016 
By Steven Wishnia and Neal Tepel

Rochester, MI – The Mayo Clinic’s announcement June 30 that it was switching its food-service vendor also meant that the workers would lose their benefits as clinic employees—and the Service Employees International Union, which represents them, says it will fight that “every step of the way.”

“Basically, they said we were good workers and they valued us, but they were subcontracting us out, and we would no longer be Mayo employees,” said Jane Peterson, one of the about 600 workers affected. "All of us, we felt betrayed. It's people who have worked for Mayo for 10, 15, 40 years. It was a state of shock.” Mayo says the workers will be given jobs with Morrison, the new vendor, at the same salary over the next year and a half, but has not yet met with the SEIU to bargain about the situation. The union calls it “a race-to-the-bottom plan of moving hundreds of food-service jobs to a subcontracted, out-of-state company.” Read more