Food Safety

About half of all food in the U.S. is consumed outside the home--in universities, hospitals, stadiums, event centers, mess halls, and corporate cafeterias. Most meals in these settings are safe and there are--thankfully--few outbreaks of foodborne illness. But we can make our meals even safer by ensuring that workers get the training they need to avoid outbreaks--especially bacterial food poisoning resulting from improper food storage, poor temperature control, and contamination from food handlers. Safety first.

Good Nutrition

Child hunger is on the rise in America. Poverty forces many families to skip meals or cut back on the quality and quantity of food, which over time can lead to malnutrition that negatively impacts learning, development, and health. Facts:

• According to the USDA, in 2006 12.6 million American children, 17.2% of the child population, lived in houses considered to be food insecure.


• Households with children experience food insecurity at almost double the rate for households without children.

Meanwhile processed foods with few nutrients and many empty calories are contributing to a national childhood obesity epidemic. Childhood obesity can lead to long-term medical conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, liver disease, and asthma. Facts:

• The percentage of obese children in America has more than doubled since 1970.


• Although the epidemic has reached a plateau, today one third of U.S. kids remain either overweight, obese or morbidly obese.

Healthy Buildings

Ahh the Great Indoors. It's where we spend 90% of our time--and where the air is often more polluted than the air outside.

Indoor air quality is an important--if overlooked--public health issue. Mold, bacteria, toxic chemicals, and allergens are the indoor pollutants that can make us cranky, headachy, or seriously ill.

Workers, community leaders, and the public need to come together in institutional settings to prevent allergies, asthma, and even worse illnesses amongst the most vulnerable--workers, children and hospital patients.

But few workers are more affected by poor indoor environmental quality than our nation's industrial laundry workers, especially those who work in healthcare laundries. Facts:

• Every year each soil sort operator in a high-volume healthcare laundry is exposed to body fluids from 1 million to 10 million sick people.
• 80% of hospital laundry is processed in off-site, high-volume facilities - not in on-premise laundries.
• Unsanitary conditions that affect laundry workers can also affect the cleanliness of the final product

Working in a healthcare laundry is a dangerous job. (See slide show)

Responsible Use of Taxpayer Money

Many of the institutions where we spend time and eat--schools, universities, hospitals, stadiums, convention centers--are funded by taxpayers. When taxpayers make an investment, we deserve to get the most for our money. Our return on investment must include good jobs and quality services for our communities--and there must be no financial hanky panky.

Facts:

• In 2002 the Office of Inspector General of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA OIG)conducted an audit of food service management companies working in our nation's schools. Findings: five of the eight food service management companies reviewed improperly retained benefits--valued at about $6 million--from 53 School Food Authorities (SFAs). In addition, some management companies manipulated the terms of their contracts with the SFAs in order to reduce their own costs and retain benefits that should have accrued to the SFAs.


• In 2005, the USDA OIG audited one food service management company and found that in 106 contracts with SFAs, the corporation did not pass on at least $1.3 million in savings it received, even though the 106 contracts specifically required the crediting back of the funds. Instead the company simply pocketed savings came from incentives, discounts, rebates, that the FSMC negotiated from food manufacturers

Good Jobs With Health Care

Just three outsourced services companies--Aramark, Compass, and Sodexo--employ more workers than the "Big 3" auto manufacturers combined. America's future depends on quality service sector jobs that allow workers to buy a home, save for college, visit the doctor, and retire with dignity. It's time to allow service workers to keep more of the profits that they provide each and every day. Our money should stay where it's needed most--in our communities.