Chartwells' abuse of workers is both systemic and shameless

Editor,

Why it is so difficult for the Chartwells’ management team on campus to pay an $11.00-an-hour employee his check within a reasonable time frame? Generally, individuals who accept wages this low don’t have thousands of dollars in the bank to pay the bills until the multinational corporation in charge of the payroll feels like issuing a paycheck.

I am UNM alumni class of 2008 who has recently experienced food insecurity as a result of being partially dependent on this corporation. I am deeply disturbed by the situation. Since few people care whether or not a person who makes $11.00 an hour gets paid on time or at all, here are some of the bigger international issues associated with this corporate entity:


When the project manager left his post at a Compass group subsidiary in Burundi to bargain with the director and deal with personal problems, no “handover note” was supplied to their replacements. The lack of continuity caused “critical food and water shortages.”

Compass’ $28 million dollar contract with D.C. schools resulted in scheduled deliveries that were late or did not occur at all, or involved deliveries of frozen food without any equipment to heat or store. And they served Slim Jims for lunch.

Compass group subsidiaries have provided food service to schools, universities, as well as military operations in Sudan, East Timor, Liberia, Burundi, Eritrea, Lebanon, Cyprus and Syria. Compass group is the largest supplier of prison food worldwide, and has a terrible reputation involving violations of RICO and Sherman Antitrust laws, fraud, bidding irregularities and money laundering. They ripped off the Washington, D.C. school lunch program and bribed U.N. officials to win a contract. In the U.K. — where they are the biggest supplier of school food —5-30% of hamburgers tested contained horse DNA.

Bertrand Olotara is an individual with a college degree who was laid off in his field and found himself working for Compass to provide food service to the U.S. Senate. During April of this year, he walked off the job because the federal government is renewing its contract with Compass. He said “none of the senators or government officials to whom we serve food asked me or my co-workers whether this multinational corporation headquartered in the U.K. is treating American workers right.”

My husband received his first paycheck 27 days after he began working for this company. He had received several different stories about his paycheck. It seemed the first paycheck had been delayed due to the fact that his background check took an unusually long time to finally clear. They put him to work in spite of the delay. As they did it, they told him that it was a violation of the 
contract with UNM.

At the point rent was due and our phone and Wi-Fi services had been disconnected, I was ready to storm the Chartwells’ office myself and refuse to leave until one way or the other he received his money. I couldn’t imagine that they would withhold his pay for an entire month. I left work early that Friday. I went with him because I thought he would get paid, we’d get caught up on bills and then do something to celebrate my birthday.

The second time he was sent away empty-handed and Chartwells’ management refused to provide any answers or advice, Melissa Madrid actually called security. After being completely demoralized by the experience, he finally received his pay, but isn’t sure if he has a job. Chartwells said they would get back to him yesterday about that, but we won’t be holding our breath.

Sincerely,

Lindsey Rankin

UNM alumni