[nfbmi-talk] aramark qualified for cora's cafe

[joe harcz Comcast]

Since BSBP has no and I repeat no licensed blind operator at Cora’s Café or the State Capitol in spite of being a mandated facility. And since they don’t even bother to have one paid blind employee at either maybe they shshould turn the services over to Aramark for they like BSBP can engage in falsifying records, misappropriating federal funds and both engage in documented retaliation against whistleblowers.!

 

Joe

Attached for reference:

 

 

Ex-staff: Aramark falsified records, served filthy food LANSING A fired Aramark prison food worker filed a whistle-blower complaint Wednesday with the Oc'cup'ational

Safety and Health Administration, alleging she lost her job for complaining about falsified records and kitchen practices that endangered health and food

safety. Amy McVay, 25, was hired Dec. 3 as Aramark Correctional Services began its three-year, $145-million contract with the state of Michigan and worked

at the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Adrian until she was fired by Aramark on Oct. 14. The stated reason for her dismissal was insubordination.

But in a Tuesday interview with the Free Press and in the complaint filed with OSHA through her Detroit attorneys, McVay alleges she was harassed and retaliated

against for complaining about a lack of temperature monitoring in cooking; the serving of raw or undercooked meat; falsified records related to dishwater

temperature and cleaning solution quality; the serving of meat that had been dropped on the floor; changing the dates on stored leftover food so it could

be served after its throw-away date; suspected inflating of the count of meals served part of the basis for which Aramark is paid by the state among other

issues. Aramark spokeswoman Karen Cutler said the allegations are "another example in the long-running series of manufactured attacks against our company.

"We stand by our food safety record ... and will not comment on allegations from disgruntled former employees," Cutler said. The Aramark contract, which

displaced about 370 state employees and is expected to save more than $14 million a year, has been plagued with problems, including meal shortages, unauthorized

menu substitutions, sanitation problems, incidents of Aramark employees smuggling in drugs or other contraband, and Aramark workers getting too friendly

or engaging in sex acts with inmates. The Free Press, using the Freedom of Information Act and interviews, has documented problems with the contract in

a series of exclusive reports. McVay said Aramark has food thermometers at the Adrian prison, but they are rarely or ever used, because of laziness or

indifference. She said she saw raw or severely undercooked chicken, potatoes, and taco meat served to inmates. "Raw chicken, it can make people very sick,

with the risk of salmonella," said McVay, who has worked in other restaurant kitchens and whose father is a corrections officer at Gus Harrison. "I started

complaining to supervisors. They said, 'This is a prison; not a five-star restaurant.' A second former Aramark worker, Tiffany Ely, 38, who worked in the

kitchen at Pugsley Correctional Facility in Kingsley from Dec. 3 until she says she quit in disgust on June 16, independently told the Free Press about

her experiences the details of which matched McVay's account with respect to ignoring required temperature monitoring and falsifying testing and records

related to the required temperature of water used to wash dishes and utensils. Ely kept records of complaints she made through an Aramark employee hotline

and to the company's human resources department, but said "nothing ever changed. The food practices upset Ely, who previously helped manage a restaurant,

so much that "I was vomiting," she said Wednesday. "I couldn't take it anymore. Cutler said Aramark investigates every employee concern it receives. Caleb

Buhs, a spokesman for the state, said "there are checks and balances in place to make certain that the food in Michigan correctional facilities are served

at the proper temperature and in a clean and safe environment. McVay and Ely independently told similar stories about kitchen staff and supervisors ignoring

procedures about monitoring cook temperatures at Gus Harrison and Pugsley, respectively. "Temperatures were not being taken of the food," and false entries

were put in a log that was supposed to record food temperatures, Ely said. She said she complained to managers on Jan. 14, March 12, April 21, April 29,

June 11, and June 16, to no effect. The two women also told similar stories about false testing and documentation related to the dishwasher temperature.

Kitchen workers use a strip of tape to test whether the dishwasher water is hot enough to clean properly, they said. If the water is hot enough, the tape

turns black. Both McVay and Ely said the water was rarely if ever hot enough. Managers instructed them and other kitchen workers to use other methods to

heat the tape until it turned black and then attach the strip of black tape to a kitchen report, as required, they said. "Aramark takes the strips and

stick them on a steam table until it turns them black," said McVay. At Pugsley, the supervisor "made us ... heat up water separately or put it (the test

strip) in the coffee pot," Ely said. At Gus Harrison, similar false testing and reporting was routinely done for the soapy water used to clean counters

and other surfaces, McVay said. In that case, the test strip was supposed to turn a tangerine color, she said. Supervisors instructed workers to get the

water soapy enough once, then change the color of a lengthy strip that could be cut into smaller pieces and placed on reports for subsequent required tests,

she said. McVay said her father, the corrections officer, wasn't enthusiastic about her working in the kitchen, but was supportive because he knew she

needed the job and income. Bruce Miller, a Detroit attorney representing McVay who mailed a complaint to OSHA on Wednesday, said: "I think she's entitled

to get her job back if she wants it," and "I think she's entitled to damages for discrimination and harassment. Aramark supervisors began taking retaliatory

discipline against her in late July, McVay said, about two weeks after she first complained to a supervisor and then to an employee hotline about the lack

of temperature control and serving of raw food. "Nobody called me back," she said. But on July 28, the single mom received a disciplinary notice for missing

a shift because she had been unable to get a sitter for her 5-month-old daughter, she said. Aramark looked the other way when other employees had similar

child-care issues, she said. McVay said she continued to make calls to the employee hotline, and also called and left messages for Michael Flesch, who

at the time was the top Aramark official in Michigan. On Sept. 29, McVay, who was paid $11.50 an hour, received a second disciplinary notice after asking

for a raise. "McVay stated to me that she was upset that the new employees were making more per hour than she did," the notice said. McVay told the Free

Press that a supervisor told her the kitchen workers let their pay raises walk out the door by permitting inmates to steal too much food. According to

the disciplinary report, McVay said: "If he thinks our food costs are high now, just wait. The notice also said: "You are an Aramark employee, not custody,

you should not be informing custody (staff) that the cookies are not the right weight, or anything about our food operations. McVay told the Free Press

she alerted corrections officers to kitchen problems when inmates were getting upset about raw food or menu item shortages in such a way that she feared

for her safety. She was fired in October after telling a supervisor she couldn't go to an area of the prison the supervisor wanted to send her, she said.

A day earlier, a different supervisor had told her not to go to the prison block in question because she hadn't been trained in serving that area, she

said. McVay also said she once saw about a half-dozen raw hamburger patties dropped on the floor. She said she picked them up to throw them away, but a

supervisor told her to cook them and feed them to the inmates because any bacteria on the patties would get killed during the cooking process. Leftovers

were wrapped, dated and refrigerated for later use, but it was also routine at the Adrian prison when three days had passed and the sticker dates had expired

to place new stickers with extended dates on top of the old stickers so the food could still be used, she said. Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan at freepress.com.

Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4