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The University of Minnesota is unjustly disciplining employees who take time off when they are sick, the union representing U food service and maintenance workers says. Joined by other U employees and allies, they held a demonstration Tuesday outside the administration building on the Minneapolis campus.
“This is a public health issue” that employees who are sick are being forced to work in cafeterias and other areas where they come into contact with students and other staff, said Mary Turner, president of the Minnesota Nurses Association.
Teamsters Local 320, which represents several hundred facilities and food service workers, said the University is misinterpreting union contract language and state law in administering its sick leave or sick time policy for certain employees.
The problem, the union said, is a computerized tracking system that ascribes automatic discipline for unscheduled absences, called “occurences” – even when they are due to illness.
“This terrible policy has gotten so bad in the University Dining Services that in the past if an employee were to get sick at work, and vomited in view of a supervisor, and were to be sent home, the University would give the employee an occurrence even with full confirmation that the employee was truly ill,” said Curt Swenson, Teamsters Local 320 vice president and business agent.
“It has also been raised that state law is being violated –when an employee reports that they have certain symptoms, by law they must vacate themselves from the work area for 24 hours, until they no longer have any condition listed within state law.”
Local 320 Secretary-Treasurer Brian Aldes said the union “is currently in the process of arbitrating up to 30 grievances over this attendance policy.”
State Rep. Debra Hilstrom, DFL-Brooklyn Center, told demonstrators the University is wrong to deny workers access to their sick leave. “I believe when you negotiate a benefit, you should be able to take that benefit,” she said.
Other speakers included a student from the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group and a representative of SEIU Local 284, Minnesota Academics United, a group of tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty organizing for a union at the University.
Research scientist Geoff Rojas called on the University to honor the workers’ right to take sick leave. “It’s very troubling when you see that someone could be sick at work” in a job like food service, he said.
In addition to filing grievances, the Teamsters will keep raising awareness of the problem, Aldes said.
“We’re not going to back down until you get the respect that you deserve,” he told the workers.