Aramark has taken over Carolina Dining Services and engages in abusive and exploitative business practices. Here are a few points to address:

Local Foods
Treatment of Workers
Food Quality
Employee Pay
Equipment 
 

1. UNC operates in a mission to support local farmers around North Carolina. However, from an employee’s perspective, much of the food comes in boxes. Additionally, produce is often rotten and served to UNC students. There is no freshness in the food and it is low quality. The UNC meal plan is very expensive and does not invest much of the money into the food quality or the employees producing the food. Instead, there is over exaggerated social media marketing and preying on the limited free time that busy UNC students have to provide their own meals.

2. Aramark exploits workers while have disabilities, student workers, immigrants, and employees with limited or no English. These employees are often underworked and do not stand up for themselves. Some have complained of being unable to find another job, thus allowing for further exploitation. There is a threatening of job security even with unreasonable job requests, such as working for positions not hired for and with no training. Other degrading behaviors include racist remarks towards immigrants and condescending behavior towards employees with limited English. Lastly, as an attempt to save money with paying employees, they are often tasked with large workloads to feed UNC students until employees are so overworked that they cannot contribute. There is no accountability of management and Aramark perpetuates that behavior.

3. The food quality at CDS is not up to serving standards. There are molds in produce, rotting ends in greens, and discoloration of preserved meats. Out of desperation, workers simply select parts of a batch of food. UNC parents, out of concern for their kids meals, pay large amounts of money for what is falsely promised as nutritious, local food. However much of the food is either frozen, boxed, or rotting. 

4. The employee pay is exploitative and stagnant for workers who have stayed in the long term. There are false promises for higher pay in desperation of workers to take the job. Often times, workers are sent to perform job duties beyond what they were hired for with the same pay. Higher level workers, such as leads or chefs, are paid 15/16 per hour, respectively. This is not a living wage in Chapel Hill or surrounding areas. Hardworking employees are sacrificing their hours for a pay that does not give basic support, thus leading to a high turnover.

5. The equipment at CDS, such as dishwashers, ovens, and ice dispensers are often broken. Aramark does not invest any money in the work space and employees are subjected to unsafe work conditions with broken equipment. There is also a hygiene issue in which some handwashing stations do not dispense soap or dishwashers are broken, which fundamentally removes basic hygiene standards for food and beverage workers. In food service storage areas, there are also dripping ceilings and dysfunctional equipment in lower level food service areas. 

The petition is not meant as an overnight change, but a collective attempt at expressing many employee’s frustrations and change to provide a better experience for both employees and UNC students. By searching up Aramark and Carolina Dining Services at UNC, others have also expressed similar sentiments.