MILOS BICANSKI/GETTY IMAGES
Kofi's lunch service was cut short
Posted on 05/03/2003 1:44:09 PM PDT by Mark Felton
Food Fight
When the Food Workers Union stages an impromptu walkout at the U.N., the diplomats start looting for lunch and booze
MILOS BICANSKI/GETTY IMAGES Kofi's lunch service was cut short |
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Saturday, May. 03, 2003
Hunger pains can apparently turn even the most upstanding diplomat into a looter. At noon on Friday, food workers at the U.N. headquarters walked off their jobs, calling a wildcat strike. The result: none of the U.N.'s five restaurants and bars was staffed. The walkout left thousands of U.N. employees scrounging for lunch — eventually, the masses stripped the cafeterias of everything, including the silverware.
The food workers staged a one-day show of muscle after they learned that they would not be reimbursed for vacation pay due to a contract shift that took place in March. For the past 17 years the U.N. has been under contract to Restaurant Associates Inc. (RA). In March, RA lost the contract to Aramark Corporation, the largest U.S. food services company. According to Aramark executives who spoke to TIME, RA informed the food workers on Friday morning that it would only cover vacation pay that was issued before May 2nd, the last day of RA's U.N. contract. Any vacation pay due after May 2nd would need to be paid by Aramark.
But Aramark informed the Union it would only pay for time worked for their company and nothing previous with RA. Aramark told the union that whether or not vacation paychecks were to be issued before or after May 2nd the work in question was performed when RA held the U.N. contract.
That was enough to set the food workers walking during the height of Friday's lunch hour. After that, what ensued was nothing short of Baghdad style chaos.
Kofi Annan, who had a private lunch previously scheduled with the members of the Security Council in the Delegates Dining Room, found they were only served the main course. After that, they were on their own — no desserts, no cleanup, no coffee for Kofi. And the service was no better for anyone else at the U.N. But as tensions grew and stomachs growled, a high-ranking U.N. official boldly ordered that all the cafeterias open their doors for business even without staff. The restaurants had been locked shut by security until about 1:00 pm when the doors flung open.
The decision to make the cafeterias into "no pay zones" spread through the 40-acre complex like wildfire. Soon, the hungry patrons came running. "It was chaos, wild, something out of a war scene," said one Aramark executive who was present. "They took everything, even the silverware," she said. Another witness from U.N. security said the cafeteria was "stripped bare." And another told TIME that the cafeteria raid was "unbelievable, crowds of people just taking everything in sight; they stripped the place bare." And yet another astonished witness said that "chickens, turkeys, souffles, casseroles all went out the door (unpaid)."
The mob then moved on to the Viennese Café, a popular snack bar in the U.N.'s conference room facility. It was also stripped bare. The takers included some well-known diplomats who finished off the raid with free drinks at the lounge for delegates. When asked how much liquor was lifted from the U.N. bar, one U.S. diplomat responded: "I stopped counting the bottles." He then excused himself and headed towards the men's room.
An Aramark executive estimated the food "removed" from the U.N.'s main cafeteria at between $7,000 and $9,000 not including the staff restaurant, the Viennese Café or the Delegate's Bar. The value of the missing silverware has yet to be estimated.
Come Monday, the workers should be back at their stations. The dispute has been temporarily resolved with the Union agreeing that the vacation pay remains RA's responsibility. The Union also wasn't willing to risk Aramark's only option of replacing all the workers.
"I hope we have large crowds rushing to come to lunch on Monday," an Aramark executive said. "But this time we expect them to pay for what they take."
Here's a 5/1 FR thread from the NY Times:
Loss Estimates Are Cut on Iraqi Artifacts ("Twenty-five pieces is not the same as 170,000.")
It seems that some of the items were in underground and other vaults (possible translation: museum officials couldn't smuggle them out soon enough). Artifacts from Iraq have been showing up on the antiquities market for the last decade, and there's been no independently verified audit or catalog of the museum's contents for decades.
Sound familiar?
And there even wasn't a war going on.
And these crooks had the gall to act surprised at what happened in Baghdad?
Racist!
Shame!
Sha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-m-e !!!
I am shocked and saddened...
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ping list.
Shouldn't that be 'Lower Bungholia" ?
Nam Vet
Names? There have to be some young hungry reporters out there who can find them. ;-)
There were never any food riots there, which is surprising given the cast of obvious thugs and political criminals you'd see sliming through the halls during any given week.
Exactly what I thought!
We continually expect those who have a
TAKE ALL YOU CAN GET: SCREW THE OTHERS
mentality to live by the
CIVILIZED WORLD RULES
..........
SILK PURSE/SOW'S EAR
ps...Isolationism might have its merits...
Tha't OK as our diplomats don't pay income tax in the foreign countries they are in. But, most assuredly our diplomats do pay sales tax and VAT in those same countries.
Bush needs to put a stop to all this mollycoddling of this den of thieves, thugs, and murderers.
Let's review Jefferson's words again:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Governments are instituted to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to the people who create the governments. The UN is a government created by the countries of the world to help achieve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I claim that they no longer are working to achieve those objectives; even that they are destructive of these ends.
It is therefore our obligation to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new form of United Nations in a form that is most likely to secure our safety and happiness.
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