Selena Diaz is all smiles after a sizable backpay award and a $7/hr raise.

It boggles the mind what some corporations will do to cheat workers out of their daily bread. Sysco, the massive food service conglomerate, is a case in point. 

Two years ago, after members ratified a strong, new contract with the company, Sysco tried to swindle some of the workers out of getting their negotiated pay raises.

Instead of providing the increases to all employees, the company wanted to shortchange some of the newer workers who were already at one hundred percent of the scale, telling them they would be getting less. In some cases, much less.

For Selena Diaz, who was part of a small, newly-organized group that supports logistical operations at the Kent facility, it would mean getting no raise at all.

"At first they said they were going to dock my pay because I hadn't been there long enough," Diaz said. "I was pretty upset. When you’re expecting one thing, and it's significantly less - that’s hugely disappointing. Me and my coworkers were feeling like something isn’t right."

Diaz reached out to her Union Representative, James Borsum, to report the issue. Borsum had already filed a grievance over a similar contractual violation impacting the drivers and warehouse workers, which he and Local 117 Secretary-Treasurer Paul Dascher were fighting to resolve.

In the end, thanks to dogged persistence of the Union and a change of management at Sysco, all groups were made whole. Workers won a backpay award of nearly four hundred thousand dollars. 

Erik Vargas-Limas (r) and Union Rep James Borsum (l) take a moment to celebrate the big win. 

"To say it was a life-changing amount of money would be an understatement," Diaz said. "It feels like we're being respected now, that we have people on our side who have our backs." 

Erik Vargas-Limas, a recoup worker who has been at Sysco just over a year, agreed. "I'm pretty happy about it," he said of his backpay award. "I'm just saving it, putting it away. Eventually, I'll see what I'm going to do with it."   

Secretary-Treasurer Dascher, who has negotiated multiple Sysco contracts, said the members deserve every penny they got.  "Our members work their tails off to make Sysco successful. We weren't going to allow the company to screw them. While it never should have come to this, ultimately Sysco did the right thing and paid workers what they were owed as negotiated in their contract."