9/17/01
Sodexho? Hell no!
By Mike Pesa
Daily Kent Stater
Notice any changes in food services lately? That's because Kent State is now using our tuition money to pay a corporation called Sodexho to manage food services on campus. One university's first moves after Sodexho took over was to limit FlashCard use to after 5 p.m. so the company could gain a virtual monopoly on breakfast and lunch for everyone on the board plan. As outrageous as that may be, it's only the tip of the iceberg.
Sodexho is a giant international French-based corporation that has been the subject of major protest movements around the world. Easily making any activist's top 10 list of evil corporations, Sodexho's record of horrors is almost beyond belief. A quick brows of its Web site will give you the impression that they are some kind of new age superhero out to save the world. This is true of most exceptionally abusive corporations since they require massive public relations onslaughts to stay in business. However, one glance at www.eyeonsodexho.org, and you get a completely different picture.
Sodexho has profited from the misfortune of others in a number of ways. According to the Not With Our Money! campaign, Sodexho's long-standing investment in the infamous private prison company Corrections Corporation of America has previously motivated them to fund a far right lobby group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Now Sodexho is operating prisons (under the euphemism "Integrated Management") in the United Kingdom and Australia, including a newly opened refugee detention center where, according to the Prison Moratorium Project, Sodexho wants to make refugees work for below minimum wage.
In the United States, Sodexho has also piled up an impressive number of federal health and safety violations, at least 12 of which were labeled by Occupational Safety Health Association as "serious." One of these violations occurred when a worker's thumb was cut off in an automatic slicer (which was not subsequently cleaned) and wound up in a student's sandwich, as reported in the Cape Cod Times.
As if that weren't enough, Sodexho is also one of the world's worst employers. They published a secret manual on "union avoidance" detailing methods of busting unions in the workplaces they take over (exposed by the HERE union). According to HERE, Sodexho has illegally ordered workers not to talk about their jobs and committed a number of other labor rights violations.
Do not despair! Sodexho is a corporation on its way out. Over 100 universities across the U.S. have terminated their contracts with Sodexho as of 1998 (and more since). From nationally recognized names like the University of North Carolina, American University, DePaul and St. Mary's, to local universities such as Oberlin College, University of Toledo, John Carroll and Lake Erie College, American universities are just saying no to Sodexho. Sodexho has even been forced to make changes in some of its more infamous policies. For example, after four sit-ins, seven lost contracts and protests at 60 campuses, Sodexho has divested from Corrections Corporations of America. Numerous lawsuits have forced it to remove illegal rules from its employee handbooks, and a worldwide "Dump Sodexho" movement has gained massive support.
Kent State can dump Sodexho too. All it takes is for students and workers to join together, stand up for their rights, and demand that their money be spent on education instead of domination. So burn those draft cards -- I mean FlashCards -- and take back control over your food choices and your money.
You have nothing to lose but your thumbs!
Email: mpesa@kent.edu