One cafeteria worker at Kingsborough Community College said that he suffered a severe ankle injury after slipping on a grease trap that had not been properly secured, and spent almost five months on disability.
Another cafeteria worker, at the New York City College of Technology, said that even though she has often worked more than 40 hours a week at her supervisors’ request, she has never been paid overtime.
Still another, who graduated from Queens College with a degree in food service management, said that her wages were so low that she cannot afford health insurance.
Those are among the anecdotes collected by the first-ever survey of people who work at the cafeterias, coffee shops and kiosks serving tens of thousands of students and faculty, throughout the City University of New York system. The survey results were released on Wednesday.