If you’ve bought food or drinks at a sporting event in the United States, there’s a decent chance that an employee of Aramark sold them to you. As of 2024, the hospitality company handled concessions for over 60 venues across the country. One of those venues is Fenway Park, a historic stadium that’s the oldest facility in Major League Baseball. Right now, though, the concessions situation at Red Sox games is a little more complicated, owing to an ongoing strike there.
As the Associated Press’s Jimmy Golen reports, the strike at Fenway began on Friday, July 25 at noon. Local 26, which represents hotel, casino, airport and food service workers in the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, has been negotiating a new contract with Aramark for over a year, The Guardian reports. Union members are concerned about both their salaries and the risks that automation could pose to their jobs.
On its social media account, the union asked Red Sox fans to avoid buying food at concessions stands inside the ballpark for as long as the strike lasts. “Today we’re asking you not to pay $$ for a #fenwayfrank,” the Union wrote on Saturday afternoon. “We the Fenway workers will be frank with you for free: we’re frankly fed up with the bosses’ lack of respect for the work that we do.”
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Never spend $15 on a watered-down macrobrew againBoth the Associated Press and The Guardian report that this is the first strike in the history of Fenway Park, which opened in 1912. Aramark has a long history there; as Armark Sports and Entertainment CEO Alison Birdwell told the industry publication Total Food Service, the company’s relationship with Fenway Park is over a century old.
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