I hate this whole organization and everyone affiliated with it.

Saturday, May. 03, 2003

Food Fight
When the Food Workers Union stages an impromptu walkout at the U.N., the diplomats start looting for lunch and booze

By STEWART STOGEL/U.N.
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."

Yeah, other than the UN cafeterias there isn't anywhere else to get food in NYC.

Geez, I guess we need to park an M-1 Abrams in front of the UN salad bar now.  





Raven, what's the source on this?  Do you have a URL?

[url]http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,449436,00.html[/url]

It's all GWB's fault.  He should have anticipated this and taken steps to protect the cafeterias.

Given that most of these "diplomats" come from socially retarded dirt world countries it shouldn't be a huge surprise that they act like animals, because that is exactly what most of them are.  

Hey, I've got my tin-foil wrapped as tight as anyone, but even I had to go check the link. It looks legit. Unbelievable! I haven't heard squat, and I'm on FOX all the time. Are we going to allow this behavior in this country??
Would this same thing happen in ANY large building in New York?? Would the whole city be just like Baghdad was if "services" broke down?? Could it happen in ANY large American city??

They could get away with murder due to diplomatic immunity Duncan.

OMFG

These people are to be considered a world authority?

Why didn't anyone call the NYPD? I wouldn't mind seeing a UN delegate with a turkey under his arm get pepper spray to the eyes!  Whoohoo!

John

I just hope to live loing enough to see the UN kicked out of the US & have them move to Paris. They both deserve each other: complete assholes.

They've been talking about renovating the UN building.I hope to god they move to Paris instead of renovting the UN building.

What about the not so infrequent riots after college football games here in the states?

I’m certainly not defending the UN, but it’s not like such events have never happened here before!!

Those riots are by dipshit college students.  The UN looting is done be the elite of third world shitholes who come here to tell the US how horrible and barbaric it is in its foreign policy.

OK, are we ready for the irony?  Aren't these the people that were complaining of our handling of Baghdad in allowing the citizens to loot?  Also, I listen to talk radio all day and night (being an OTR trucker that is all I listen to when driving)  and have heard nothing of this up until now.

I saw this mentioned on the news banner running at the bottom of Fox News.  It's not that suprising, they think diplomatic immunity covers any non violent act.

THE US OUT OF THE UN
THE UN OUT OF THE US !!

Well, and you're right Evan, but dammit, didn't this just happen today?? I haven't seen squat about it!! That's big news given the political climate! Where's the TV media?? Where's the outrage?

Totally agree. You can take them out of mud huts, and dress 'em up, but you can't change what they are;---- uncivilized savages.

When it comes to the booze pilfering tho, I suspect that some of that went out in the hands of the "cultured" Europeans too [;D]

Why should we even care about this? Our main goal should be is to expell the UN from the USA and put all that real estate for better uses. Like business, apartmrnts anything to help the NYC economy even if it's a small share.