Members of several University of Wisconsin student organizations protesting UW’s partnership with Palermo’s Pizza rallied on Bascom Hill Thursday to urge the administration to sever ties with the company.
UWMad@Palermo’s Coalition organized the 4 p.m. rally, along with the help of a coalition of students from several organizations fighting for workers’ rights and labor issues.
Emily Baer of the Student Labor Action Coalition introduced each of the rally speakers, urging students to continue taking action against the partnership between UW and Palermo’s.
Teacher’s Assistant Association Co-President Charity Schmidt kicked off the rally with a summary of the 210-day protest against the university’s contract with Palermo’s.
Schmidt said Interim Chancellor David Ward told protestors he would consider ending the university’s relationship with the pizza company once the National Labor Relations Board released its report. But even after the NLRB report confirmed worker mistreatment at the company, Ward has still not made a decision on the contract.
Schmidt highlighted that Palermo’s, who fired 70 workers recently over labor disputes, claimed they would hire back the workers and pay them back the money they had lost, but still have not followed through with their promise.
“Workers should not be losing fingers to make our pizza,” Schmidt said. “This is not right, this is not fair, and we are here to say ‘Ward, cut the contract.'”
Several former Palermo’s employees attended the rally and two explained the types of labor violations committed in the workplace, though they requested their names not be disclosed for privacy purposes. Because the two only spoke Spanish, an English translator helped convey their message to the crowd.
Both had worked for the company for over a decade and suffered abuses throughout their time with Palermo’s.
When a large group of workers came forward with plans to form a union, management fired 80, many of whom had been working for the company for well over a decade, the former employees said.
One of the former workers said he worked more than 80 hours a week and was unable to request sick days without the threat of being fired.
Jeremy Levinger, member of UW’s multicultural artistic program First Wave, presented a poem to the crowd in both Spanish and English, urging everyone to work together to bring justice to the workers.
When the speakers concluded, the rally moved inside of Bascom Hall and members had a sit-in outside of the Chancellor’s office.
Ward was not inside his office at the time and did not confront the protestors.
SLAC member Cornell Zbikowski said Ward has only communicated with the coalition through letters and other speakers, but has not had any face-to-face contact with the protesters.
“We’re definitely not going to go away,” Zbikowski said. “We’re going to keep going at this until it gets cut.”
The coalition will hold another rally on Monday, April 29.
