Gawker
The average compensation of a Goldman Sachs employee was $660,000 last year, and chief Lloyd Blankfein took home the largest Wall Street CEO payday in history in 2007, at $69 million. The average salary of a worker in Goldman Sachs' corporate cafeteria, as paid by food service firm Aramark? $21,000 per year, according to labor union UNITE HERE. That is, of course, a huge gulf in pay. But why is the union bringing this up now?
UNITE HERE isn't trying to unionize Sachs' workers since they are already represented by the union. Despite the pay gulf at Goldman between cafeteria workers and bankers, the union local's current efforts, at least as outlined in the press release below, do not focus on wages for Goldman cafeteria workers.
Instead, the union wants to unionize PriceWaterhouseCooper and Citigroup's Aramark-run executive dining rooms, and to do so "without management interference" — that's usually code for a process called "card check neutrality" in which management must not take a position against unionization and in which workers do not cast anonymous ballots but instead sign cards and give them to the union. The process makes unionization much easier.
The union also wants better wages for workers at Bank of New York.
How did Goldman get tied up in all this, then? It happens to own 20 percent of Aramark and the union is trying to pressure Goldman to pressure Aramark. And what better way to do so than with a bold statistic, even if it doesn't have much to do with the matter at hand.
UNITE HERE press release:
Last year the average Goldman Sachs employee made approximately $660,000
while the average Aramark cafeteria employee at Goldman took home only
$410 per week. Hundreds of Aramark workers will call on Goldman, as a
part owner of Aramark, to tell the company to raise wages and provide
health insurance that families can afford, and to stop interfering in
workers’ decision to form a union.
“Aramark is in cafeterias all across the city,” explains Bill Granfield.
“Lots of places, lots of problems – and we’re here at Goldman because
they’re not just a client they’re an owner. This company has the ability
to change the lives of the people serving the country’s richest
financial institutions.”
Thirty-two Aramark cafeteria workers at Bank of New York locations at
101 Barclay and One Wall Street – where the rally begins – went out on
strike on March 4 to demand better wages after more than four months of
working without a contract.
The strike is just the latest in a long string of labor problems the
company has provoked here in New York, and across the country. Aramark
workers at 55 Water Street and New York Life were forced to walk the
picket line for three months in the dead of winter before Aramark
finally settled in February.
On March 3, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer held a hearing to
address the quality of jobs created in the borough. Aramark cafeteria
workers at locations around the city testified about the low standards
and struggles they face.
At PricewaterhouseCoopers and Citigroup’s executive dining room,
non-union Aramark workers are fighting for the right to decide whether
they want a union without management interference, and struggling to
leave the ranks of the working poor. Aramark has responded by
intimidating and interrogating workers.
Today’s march will bring together hundreds of Aramark workers from
across the city – from cafeterias at PricewaterhouseCoopers, the United
Nations, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, CBS, and others.
“Goldman Sachs owns 20% of Aramark. That puts them in the position to
change the company’s course. Aramark has violated the public trust in
Philly, in Detroit, in Florida and been enmeshed in one scandal after
another. We expect Goldman and the other owners of Aramark to rein in
this company's behavior, or be held accountable for it,” said Bruce Raynor.
