Food workers to consider job offer Monday, after contract flip at Mount Allison University

Mount Allison’s food workers have a big decision to make on Monday, April 22, when members of CUPE Local 1440 will consider an offer from the school’s new dining services contractor, Chartwells Canada.

Local 1440 president Jason Tower says his members “know we have to give up some stuff,” in the establishment of the new contract. “We get that completely, because it’s a new company,” said Tower from a CUPE convention in Fredericton on Thursday.

Mount Allison did not require bidders for its dining services contract to recognize the existing collective agreement with Local 1440 and its 45 members. That hasn’t always been the case.

Before 2006, a change in companies did not mean a mass firing and a fresh start in contract negotiations for unionized workers. Tower says that 2006 was the first time that a new company was not required to honour existing worker contracts. Since then, Mount Allison seems to have embraced the practice of ‘contract flipping’, where it seeks a new, low bidder without any requirement for that company to hire current staff, or honour their established contract.

In a news release the university says it followed, “procurement legislation and established norms within the University sector, which require periodic participation in open and competitive procurement processes.”

Tower says that on Monday he will meet with local members to show them the offer from Chartwells, and then hold a vote. The short timeline is “not ideal,” says Tower, but there’s some time pressure on the contract offer for both the workers and Chartwells. The union’s collective agreement with Aramark ends on April 30, and Chartwells Canada will take over on May 1, in time for a number of planned convocation events.

Mount Allison publicly announced Chartwells Canada as its new provider on April 10, about six weeks after Aramark signalled they lost the contract by delivering termination notices to all their staff.

Mount Allison says Chartwells has signed a five year contract, with an option for two five-year renewals. The current contractor, Aramark, held the contract for 18 years in total.

Erica Butler is a journalist with CHMA where this story first appeared on April 19, 2024.