newjerseynewsroom.com

Thousands of school food service workers in New Jersey are living at or near poverty and the state’s $200 million industry, dominated by Fairfield, NJ - based Pomptonian Food  Service , is in need of greater transparency and accountability, according to a new report by the Rutgers University Center for Women and Work/School of Management and Labor Relations and 32BJ SEIU – the property service workers union.

“Pomptonian and other contractors are low bidding school districts to win profitable contracts, but sticking taxpayers with the bill when it comes to providing health care to workers,” said Kevin Brown, 32BJ District Leader for New Jersey.  “We understand that school districts must tighten their belts, but before outsourcing these jobs to save money they should take a closer look at the numbers.”

Some 7,000 people are employed by Pomptonian and other contractors in the state’s school food service industry – many of whom are paid about half as much as those working directly for school districts, according to the report which links a drop in wage and benefit standards to the stepped-up outsourcing of food service staff.

According to the study, the average hourly wage for food preparation workers in educational services was only $8.15, and many of these jobs pay no more than the state minimum wage of $7.15.  With no affordable health benefits offered to these workers, the school food service industry is one of the biggest drains on New Jersey FamilyCare and/or Medicaid with over 6,300 employees and their children covered by the taxpayer-funded state health assistance plan.

Mark Vidovich, president of Pomptonian Food Service in Fairfield, told NJ.Com his average cafeteria employee earns $10.50 an hour and works four to five hours a day, 170 days a year. A family-owned company, Pomptonian operates in 70 New Jersey districts.

Pomptonian employees receive monthly training on food safety issues and also meet the health department requirements of the community where they work, he said.

“Pomptonian is most guilty of this practice among food service companies, with the same percentage of its workers on NJ FamilyCare as workers at Wal Mart stores in New Jersey,” said Brown.

The report, which was drawn from federal and state sources, is supplemented by focus group findings showing workers with a strong commitment to the services they provide students and their parents, despite the abysmal compensation and lack of on-the-job training.

“I love feeding school children and helping them eat a balanced meal,” said April Jones, a food service worker for the past 5 years at 5/6 Elementary School in Hackensack.  “But I deserve health insurance and paid sick days from my employer, especially since I handle food on a daily basis.”

“School food service workers are often ‘invisible’ as a factor in student well being”, said Mary McCain, author of the report for the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers.  “But their role in food preparation and service often can have more influence on food safety and students’ healthy eating than official directives.”

The report calls on state leaders to make the following improvements through legislative or executive action:

* Increase wages and benefits to a level to sustain families and to reduce reliance on state-funded safety net programs.

* Establish transparency and accountability by requiring school districts and private contractors to provide information on wages and benefits, training certification and enrollment by school district.

* Establish a state system for requiring and providing a “food handler permit” for all food service workers in New Jersey.

* Post all food service job announcements on school cafeteria bulletin boards and local One Stop Centers.  Public and uniform posting of open positions within a school district would provide greater transparency to workers about other opportunities.

The Campaign for Quality Services, a coalition led locally by 32BJ, is bringing together workers, parents and school leaders to improve school food programs.  Raising our issue at individual schools and with legislators in Trenton and Washington, DC, the partnership is fighting for the wages and benefits which will lower worker turnover and improve the lives of the nation’s school cafeteria workers.

With more than 100,000 members, including 8,000 in New Jersey, 32BJ is the largest property services union in the country.