Holding colorful homemade signs and pictures of bagels, Bodo’s employees—joined by several dozen community members—gathered on the Corner last week, urging the restaurant to allow its staff to unionize. A majority of the workers at the shop’s Corner location have presented signed union cards to management in an effort to improve wages, benefits, and overall working conditions.
“We are doing this not because we dislike Bodo’s—but because we want to improve it. In the three-plus years that I’ve been here, the starting wage has never been at or above a living wage,” said employee Malcolm Augat during the rally. “[Bodo’s] needs to make sure that it has workers from the city, who can afford to live in the city.”
“I know people who haven’t gotten a raise in a year and a half—I got one last month and in January. I’ve been here eight months,” added employee William Wagoner.
Employee Kieran Williams called for an end to the alleged sexual misconduct at Bodo’s. He claimed that a former female worker touched his crotch twice during their first shift together last year. Though he says he immediately reported the incident to management, he had to work with her for nearly three more months, until she was fired for not showing up to work.
“I know countless other people who have quit because they’ve had negative interactions with other co-workers, including other cases of sexual harassment…and [whose] harassers are still employed by Bodo’s,” he added.
Charlottesville City Councilors Michael Payne and Sena Magill, along with 57th District Delegate Sally Hudson, also voiced their support of the Bodo’s union, and encouraged more service workers across the city to unionize.
However, not all Bodo’s employees are on board with the union effort. Six of the Corner Bodo’s 14 employees have not signed union cards yet. One Bodo’s worker silently protested throughout last week’s rally, holding up a brown cardboard sign saying, “8+ year Bodo’s employee AGAINST the union.”
Since requesting voluntary recognition of the union—which would become a part of the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400—last week, pro-union employees claim they have also received negative reactions from Bodo’s managers, as well as co-owners Scott Smith and John Kokola. Wagoner and Williams, who have been working to unionize the Corner Bodo’s for about half a year, accuse management of refusing to meet with union members, and making it “harassment” to ask people to join the union. One owner also came into the Corner location last week, and made employees “feel uncomfortable,” alleges Williams.
Following the union rally, Kokola and Smith posted a message to employees at a different Bodo’s location, encouraging them to weigh “the pros and cons” of unionizing.
“We strongly suspect that there would be more negatives than positives associated with a union at Bodo’s,” read the letter, shared with C-VILLE by an anonymous employee. “A union [would] demand the kind of mediated management that would disrupt our efforts to operate with the judgment and humanity that permit situational context. A management staff contractually stripped of such autonomy…must resort to the kind of ‘three strikes and you’re out’ rule-book foolishness that makes so many other workplaces feel thoughtlessly rigid, disconnected, or even stupid.”
In an email to C-VILLE, however, Scott emphasized that he and Kokola support employees’ rights to choose to be represented by a union or not, and have not prohibited them from discussing unionizing at work—but cannot meet with union representatives until the process is complete. He also touted the wages and benefits Bodo’s employees already receive.
“The average pay for staff at the Corner currently sits at $17.00,” Scott wrote. “We also pay 2/3 of the [health care] premium for employees working 30 or more hours…and provide 6 paid holidays per year and an escalating one to two weeks of yearly vacation pay for full time staff.”
According to the MIT Living Wage calculator, a living wage for an adult (with no children) in Charlottesville is at least $18.59 an hour.
As for Williams’ accusations, Smith says management did speak with that former employee about inappropriate touching and believed the situation had been resolved to Williams’ satisfaction. Bodo’s has a policy prohibiting sexual harassment.
The second time Williams reported being touched by the employee to the manager, Williams “was very suspicious that this brush by ‘accident’ was actually intended, [but] stopped short of describing it as clearly intentional,” explained Smith in an email. “[The manager] agreed that he would talk with her to investigate it further, but he [believes] that she was then fired for being a no-call, no-show before he could sit down with her.”
“I absolutely did say–and even point to—where she touched me. The fact that it happened twice in quick succession tells me it wasn’t accidental,” said Williams in a statement to C-VILLE. “The fact that my experience is far from isolated remains. Because the few that do come forward see little to no consequences for their offenders, many feel as though coming forward would not be worthwhile.”
“Without clear guidelines for [managers] to follow, the process for dealing with harassment feels ad hoc and sporadically enforced. This is why we believe a union would be beneficial to our workplace,” he added.
If Bodo’s owners refuse to voluntarily recognize the union, the Corner employees will have the opportunity to vote in a union election. If the majority vote in favor of the union, they can then start negotiating a contract.
“Our responsibility here is to ensure that all employees have that opportunity to express their choice with a vote, and to continue to support them whatever the outcome might be,” says Scott.
If the Corner Bodo’s does vote to unionize, it will not affect the restaurant’s Preston Avenue and Emmett Street locations. However, Williams says union organizers have already started talking to employees there, and are “absolutely willing to help” them unionize, too.
And despite the pushback they say they have received from management, the pro-union employees do not want the community to boycott the restaurant. Instead, they ask union supporters to come to the Corner location wearing a red article of clothing on Wednesdays.
“We would encourage you to reach out to the owners and have them do the right thing,” tweeted the Bodo’s union account last week. “You can also voice your support of the union to Bodo’s workers when you order your favorite bagel!”