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The Orleans Parish School Board voted unanimously last week to raise food service workers’ minimum wage to $15 an hour, a step in the right direction for employees and the city, workers’ rights groups said.
But the requirement doesn’t apply to workers at charter schools that don’t use school district employees for food service. Only 13 of the city’s 87 public schools rely on the district for food service. Nearly all the others use private contractors.
“I think it was great, and great effort by OPSB to come out in front of this issue,” LaTanja Silvester said in a phone interview Monday.
Silvester is the spokeswoman for the local chapter of Service Employees International Union. They have collective bargaining agreements with food service contractors Sodexo and Chartwells, but she said neither agreement approaches a $15/hour starting wage.
The School Board’s decision affects 66 district employees who work in food service across 13 schools, according to a district spokeswoman.
“We have roughly 350 other members who work for private sector food service provides,” Silvester said.
District and charter employees spoke up at a meeting last week.
“This is my sixth school year and I only make $11 an hour,” one woman in a purple SEIU shirt told board members. “I can’t live off of that. I’m tired of telling my kids ‘no,’ or ‘I can’t’ because I can’t afford the activities they want to join to keep them off the streets.”
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