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HEU members on strike against french multinational Sodexho began a general strike today, closing retail food outlets at a dozen BC hospitals.

The food service workers had been on rotating strike, but without a reasonable wage offer from their employer in sight, the workers decided to turn up the pressure.

The workers who staff retail food outlets are paid poverty-level wages by a corporation that recorded global revenues of $17 billion last year,” says HEU secretary-business manager Judy Darcy.

Sodexho pays 90 per cent of these employees $10.15 an hour and is refusing to return to the bargaining table with a fair wage offer – one that would reduce the high staff turnover and stabilize the workforce.”

Sodexho will pocket more than $400 million from BC taxpayers through lucrative contracts signed with health authorities for food, cleaning and support services in hospitals and care facilities.

HEU represents many other Sodexho workers, but they are not allowed to strike under BC’s essential services law.

The strike against Sodexho began Sept. 15