Concession workers at Fenway Park may go back on strike—potentially indefinitely—if food and beverage vendor Aramark doesn’t offer a new labor contract.
On Wednesday, ahead of the Boston Red Sox’s series finale against the Kansas City Royals, Unite Here Local 26 will give Aramark a formal notice of a potential strike. It comes over a week after the unionized concession workers walked off the job on July 25 for three days during the series against the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Aramark hired replacement workers for the series, some of whom were involved in a confrontation with picketing union members outside the stadium after Saturday’s game, according to NBC Boston.
The union employees returned to the job for this past weekend’s series against the Houston Astros without incident; the Red Sox host the Royals for three games starting Monday.
The two sides have been at odds since Dec. 31, 2024, when the previous contract expired. On June 15, while the Red Sox hosted the rival New York Yankees, Local 26 authorized a strike that could take place at any point during the regular season, with 95% of its members voting in favor. A few weeks later on July 23, the union gave Aramark 48 hours to offer a new contract before walking off the job; the company let the deadline pass, leading to the three-day strike.
Peter Dankens, a beer server who began working at the ballpark in 1976 as a 14-year-old porter, is the longest-tenured vendor at Fenway and a member of the union’s bargaining committee. In the last talks between the two sides prior to the July strike, Dankens said that he was taken aback by a comment from one of Aramark’s negotiators.
“I wasn’t that hyped up about the whole thing until I went to the bargaining meeting,” he said, “and the person who represented Aramark said, ‘Well, you people make enough money.’ I couldn’t believe someone said that. I make at the top very good money, sure, but my money doesn’t come from Aramark. My money comes from the fans.”
Dankens said he walked off the job in support of the people in the back of the house who deliver, stock and cook the food. “They’re unrecognized. I don’t think anybody in management, other than the floor supervisors, know their names individually. I don’t think it’s not the way they used to be. It really used to be family, and it’s not that way anymore.”
Last Thursday, the bargaining committee discussed next steps, thinking that negotiations towards a new deal could go into the 2026 MLB regular season. Neither side has spoken to one another since the strike during the Red Sox/Dodgers series, though the union continues to say that it’s up to Aramark to offer what it believes to be a fair proposal.
Another point of contention, according to Dankens, was about Juneteenth, which was declared a federal holiday in 2021. The committee said it asked Aramark to make that a paid holiday for its employees, but that request was denied.
“That’s a slap in the face to every person of color that works there, saying ‘we’ll discuss it with you in 2030,’” Dankens said. “Who discusses a national holiday in honor of people of color in 2030? It’s a national holiday.”
Aramark didn’t reply to a request for comment.
The negotiations could play out the same way as it did in Philadelphia when that city’s union chapter representing concession workers across the three venues of the stadium complex went on strike in late September 2024, long after its own contract expired. Some concession workers picketed as the Phillies played their final regular-season series before the playoffs. Though the strike lasted four days, Aramark and the union did not come to terms on a new contract until this past April.
While there has been little common ground at the negotiating table, there was a moment when both sides put their hostilities aside. One of the union members who worked at the ballpark passed away in June after a battle with esophageal cancer. At the funeral, Dankens said he saw two members of Aramark’s senior management team among the attendees.
“I think they thought I was going to say something about this strike,” he said. “And I said to them, you know, it meant a lot to see you coming to [the] funeral. And believe me, it was not unnoticed.
“I think they were kind of taken aback that I said that to them, but it did mean something to see them there. It was almost like we went back to the olden days.”
(This story has been updated in the first paragraph to accurately reflect the union’s intentions around the strike. This story has been corrected in the second paragraph to note the Red Sox will play the Royals on Wednesday, and in the fifth paragraph to clarify who is speaking.)
