Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Some @Mets Staff get a letter about not being able to work at Citi Field yet.


Now I wonder what staff it was sent to. Was it just seasonal workers? Staff that was just hired to fill positions in tickets sales? Security? I have no idea. This letter was tweeted by Gary Sheffield Jr.




From the NY Daily News 3/27/202. 
Last week, each MLB team pledged a combined $30 million to their ballpark employees unable to work their shifts during the coronavirus shutdown.
“I am proud that our clubs came together so quickly and uniformly to support these individuals who provide so much to the game we love,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement touting the charitable endeavor.
Two canceled games into the big league season, however, Lavoune Witherspoon is still waiting for that support. She and hundreds of other contracted food service workers at the Mets’ home ballpark haven’t received a single paycheck since the league suspended the 2020 season.
“How are people supposed to live” Witherspoon said, who is a cook for Citi Field’s Sweet Chick, a stadium outpost of the popular comfort food restaurant. “Nobody reached out to us when this happened.”
Unite Here Local 100, the union that represents roughly 340 food workers including Witherspoon, has said they’ve yet to hear back from the Mets or Aramark, the food service client that staffs their vendors with contracted workers. The union told the Daily News that 70 of those seasonal workers have worked Mets games for at least 10 years.
Witherspoon has said the non-response is especially hurtful because they’re regularly referred to as “a family” by Aramark.
“We got a newsletter before the season started [Aramark] sent everybody saying, ‘Oh, welcome back to the stadium, family... It’s gonna be a great season. We thank you for last year, all you’ve done,'” Witherspoon said. “We got that paper to come back and now that we in a crisis nationwide. Nobody is taking care of us.” 
Read more here. 
I want to know who the letter from the Mets was for. What is going on with the money that was pledged by all the teams to go to the seasonal workers. Why there isn't any kind of communications going on between them. The one hold up I can see is that Aramark is the go between the Mets and the folks who work at Citi Field in concessions. They are the ones who actually pay the employees from their contract with the Mets. From the Daily News Article above, "Aramark, which made $14.6 billion in revenue in 2018, signs their worker paychecks, while the Mets, who were almost sold for $2.6 billion in a since-botched deal, signs Aramark’s. It is unclear, however, who feels who should pay workers during the shutdown, as neither entity has yet to provide comment clarifying if or when workers like Witherspoon would receive pay.
The Mets released this statement: “The Mets will be participating in the initiative announced by Major League Baseball by contributing $1 million to support ballpark employees affected by the delay in the start of the 2020 regular season. We are in the process of carefully considering the most appropriate way to allocate these funds.”" That is why this letter is confusing to me. Who is it for? 

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