Reports from the Ground of the Food Justice Movement

University of Washington Students Protest Against Sodexo

 Twenty-Five Arrested

From the Mountains of Colorado. May 11. This past Tuesday night I received an urgent email from a former student involved in the UW Kick Out Sodexo Coalition inviting me to a vigil on Wednesday evening. I could not attend since I am on a research trip to Colorado. I am posting this report as my small contribution to this important campaign.

Sodexo is a major transnational food systems and facilities management corporation. It employs 380,000 people in 80 countries and it currently supplies the concessions at UW athletic facilities under a five-year contract expiring in June 2012. 

The Coalition set a deadline, May 10, for UW Acting President Phyllis Wise to cut the contract with Sodexo.  The President showed no intention of moving forward with the contract cut. 

In response to the President's inaction, the students held a vigil on Wednesday night at 5:00 to wait for an announcement. The email invited me to attend and make a brief statement on the issue. Unfortunately, I am on a research trip to Colorado and could not attend the vigil.

The vigil was designed to encourage President Wise "to make the right decision about human rights and to mourn the University's continued relationship with a systematic human rights abuser."  The vigil  was organized as "an opportunity for the community to come together around food, music and speakers in support of students who have been pushing for this contract cut for over seven months, saying that we are aware that the decisions we make at this prestigious university, such as the companies with whom we contract, has an impact on the global community."

Now, I have learned that UW Police arrested about 25 University of Washington students during the vigil Wednesday evening after an hours-long sit-in by at least 50 activists at Gerberding Hall. According to reports from the students, they were cited for trespassing and released.

Over the past 2-3 years, the student-led Coalition has conducted careful and systematic research on Sodexo including interviews with employees who have confirmed that the company uses intimidation tactics to discourage unionizing. Outside the U.S., Sodexo has received international condemnation for  denying workers basic rights like work breaks, full or overtime pay, and numerous other abuses documented in reports by Human Rights Watch and TransAfrica Forum. During an event organized by the Coalition, a Sodexo worker from the Dominican Republic spoke about being fired for trying to form a union.

According to UW administration officials, the union-busting actions of the corporation are insufficient as grounds for terminating the contract.

This is utter nonsense. Had I been present at the vigil I would have urged President Wise to embrace this righteous campaign. We have been here before and the boycott of South Africa, led in many quarters by college students, was a major force behind the dismantling of the apartheid regime there. As a result of the South Africa struggle, many universities and colleges have established socially responsible investment committees to monitor and respond to social and environmental values by using the power of disinvestment or proxy votes to bring about changes in corporate governance and management-worker relations.

If the University of Washington aspires to be a global leader in environmental sustainability and social justice; if it intends to be a serious force for democracy and workers' rights; then it must terminate its relationship with Sodexo.  

Responding to pressure from growing student activism over the past few years, the UW has added corporate responsibility to the criteria it will use to evaluate contractors in the future. This is only one small step. The bigger and more meaningful step is for the UW to act immediately by terminating the Sodexo contract. 

Food justice and food sovereignty demand this "wise" action.