[Antiracism] [Workers' Rights] Against Amherst School Lunch privatization 6/18

[WMass Jobs With Justice]

From: Ben Grosscup 

Please Forward Widely

Dear friends,

I hope that you may be able to come out this Wednesday (June 18) to support
the Amherst Lunch Ladies. Some of us will be gathering at 6:45pm, prior to
the regional school committee meeting in the high school library, 21 Mattoon
Street, Amherst. We'll hold signs and make it clear that our community still
objects to the school committee's decision to outsource the food services
jobs. We will continue seeking justice even though all nine school committee
members have sadly decided not to call for reconsideration of their decision
to outsource the jobs of these women who have served our community for so
many years. Please, read on below.

In Solidarity,

Ben Grosscup
413-658-5374
btg03 at hampshire.edu

-------- Original Message -------- 

From: Jim Oldham 

Friends,

This Wednesday, June 18, at 7pm in the High School library, please help us 
give the School Committee a message on behalf of the lunch ladies. Four 
hundred more members of our community have spoken out against the 
outsourcing of food service jobs by signing postcards stating that this 
decision does not reflect our values. (See below for full text.)

Please join us as we deliver these cards to School Committee members. This 
will be a brief event, requiring less than half an hour of your time, but 
it is an important one too. The cards, most of which were signed in just 
two mornings on the Amherst Common, are a small representation of the 
strong public rejection of the Committee's action. Since this is the last 
Committee meeting of the school year--and possibly be the last that 
Superintendent Hochman attends--it is an important moment to deliver our 
message.

Thank you. Here is the text of the cards:

"School Committee and Superintendent:

I am against outsourcing the jobs of the school lunch ladies.

1) Your decision does not reflect the values of our community

2) It singles out a group of older women who have worked for our kids for 
17 years on average.

3) The lunch ladies deserve respect and fair treatment.

4) Outsourcing their jobs is not in the best interest of our kids or their 
nutrition.

I strongly urge you to keep the lunch ladies as school employees."


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