Friday, November 09, 2007, 11/09/2007 01:07:00 PM

Union Wants Aramark's "Trade Secrets"

By Todd
Local 217 union members and some parents want Aramark Corp. to fully disclose terms of its contract with the New Haven Public Schools.

Service Employees International Union and UNITE HERE! requested the information, along with eight New Haven parents in a letter to Board of Education Chairman Brian Perkins, dated Oct. 29. But a copy of the contract documents released last week by the New Haven corporation counsel's office had so many redactions, recipients said, that they dubbed it useless.

Assistant city corporation counsel Kathleen Foster said she only redacted portions of the contract that would give up trade secrets, which are exempt under Freedom of Information laws.The legal definition of trade secret include any information that has its own economic value by being secret and that a company has made an effort to keep secret."Mostly it was information and cost data that related to their food purchasing network," Foster said.
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