The Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Organization (MASH) is an organization of service and hospitality workers in Milwaukee focused on improving employment and workforce standards in our industries. MASH addresses the challenges facing workers and employers in order to transform employment, industries, our community, and our lives.
MASH works at the intersection of employer and worker needs in the service and hospitality sectors. We raise standards for job quality and workforce development. MASH recruits and trains to build a quality workforce pipeline for employers, provides access to good jobs with living wages for workers, and creates career pathways that strengthen the industry workforce to the benefit of both employers and workers.
We fight to expand coverage of the agreement across the service and hospitality sectors to include more employers not only to raise employment standards for workers but also to strengthen the standards in the industries to the benefit of employers.
We recruit workers with industry experience as well as residents of targeted neighborhoods with high poverty and high unemployment/underemployment, so that employers have access to a ready workforce and that workers have access to jobs.
History
MASH launched in 2018 to implement a community benefits agreement with the Milwaukee Bucks covering employment in the new downtown arena and surrounding development zone. This landmark agreement ensures good jobs with career pathways in the service and hospitality industries, and that these jobs go to Milwaukee workers from neighborhoods hit hardest by poverty and unemployment. The agreement includes:
- Wage floor on a path to $15 per hour (by 2023, starting at $12.50 in 2018)
- Half of all jobs in the arena and surrounding development filled by residents of targeted neighborhoods by zip code
- Requirement that covered employers source a pipeline of employees through the MASH hiring hall
- Protection of workers’ rights to organize a union with a free and fair process
In 2019 the Fiserv Forum workers’ union formed, represented by MASH.
In 2020 MASH secured an industry-leading, standard-setting contract with the Bucks. Nearly 1,000 Fiserv Forum workers’ wages are set to increase by at least two-thirds from the non-union predecessor arena. The agreements include a $15/hour minimum wage for arena workers employed by Levy Premium Foodservice and Deer District LLC that will phase in before the start of the 2020 Democratic National Convention. Workers will also see raises through a cost-of-living adjustment and longevity pay increase during the life of the three- year agreement.