Following the termination of Terry Shelly, a former Orleans Room worker, students rallied Feb. 22 to send demands to Sodexo management.
On Feb. 22, 27 students and several Loyola University Sodexo employees gathered at the post office loading dock and walked into the Danna Center, through the St. Charles Room and into the Loyola Dining Services office to speak with Sodexo management and to submit a letter concerning the termination of Shelly and the recognition of the workers’ union.
The letter stated that Shelly’s termination “resulted from a lack of communication of current Sodexo policies” and requested that Shelly’s “unjust termination is remedied immediately.” In the letter, students demanded Sodexo reinstate Shelly’s job, issue an apology to Shelly and give Shelly back pay.
Students met Feb. 19 to discuss Monday’s course of action. The final decision was to present the letter in the same way workers and students presented the workers’ petition to management Jan. 14.
“In the same model, we wanted to get students and workers together to approach management about the unjust policies surrounding (Shelly) getting fired,” Jamie Broussard, sociology senior and co-chairwoman of Loyola University Community Action Program, said.
As student spokesman, Rolando Lopez, English writing sophomore, spoke with Heather Bacque, Sodexo general manager, to “express discontent to Sodexo for firing Terry Shelly.”
Bacque was “not at liberty to discuss (Shelly’s) employment” and could not accept the letter, she said as Lopez presented it.
The students taped the letter to the Dining Services door. Bacque is unaware of the letter’s current location.
Ben Hartley, Sodexo area manager, was also unable to comment.
Lee Ann Moss, political science senior, noted that students are paying customers of Sodexo.
“The general hesitation to talk to customers is a negative customer service practice in that specific instance,” she said.
Broussard agreed.
“The fact that management would not come to speak with us is fundamentally a customer service issue,” she said.
Though management refused to speak with the students at that time, Chad Carson, sociology senior and co-chairman of LUCAP, said he believes students should not give up.
“We are ready to take further action in case they don’t meet our demands by the deadline we issued in the letter,” Carson said.
The deadline was Feb. 24 and management presented no response.
“(We will) keep doing appropriate student action and persist until Sodexo addresses the issues,” Lopez said.
Though Sodexo policies have remained the same, students are still content about the outcome.
“I thought it was amazing how this event came about,” Carson said. “It was truly a collaboration between students and workers to craft the demands and decide how we were going to proceed with this.”
Lopez noted that students are not leading the campaign for Sodexo workers unionizing; they are simply supporting them.
“We made the campus aware of what is going on. We made management aware that this is a student thing … the students are supporting the workers,” Lopez said.
“Our presence means something,” he said. “I think that’s something Sodexo needs to know.”
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