DePaul University Terminates Foodservice Contract with Sodexho Marriott: Student

For Immediate Release:

For more information contact:
Simon Fisher, DePaul University
(773) 342-4421 or (847) 363-0014
strikeback [at] etoast.com

Chicago-May 21, 2001-After a year of education and action by a coalition led by the Activist Student Union (ASU), DePaul University joins five other universities in its decision to terminate its foodservice contract with Sodexho Marriott, which currently operates DePaul's cafeterias.

The campaign focused on Sodexho Alliance's ties to the private prison industry. Sodexho Alliance currently owns 48% of Sodexho Marriott and has made an offer to shareholders to buy the remaining 52%. Sodexho Alliance is also the largest institutional investor in Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the leader in the US for-profit prison industry. Sodexho Alliance also wholly owns two other private prison companies -- Corrections Corporation of Australia and UK Detention Services.

Unlike public facilities, for-profit prisons are accountable not to public agencies but to shareholders (such as Sodexho Alliance). Thus, cost-cutting measures often result in facilities with low standards of inmate healthcare,
nutrition and education and higher escape rates. In many states, funding previously allocated for education has been redirected to private prison construction, resulting in overcrowded classrooms, decreased financial aid and higher tuition at public institutions.

Students at DePaul also cited Sodexho Marriott's past record of anti-union activities and repeated flouting of labor laws at other locations, including the interrogation of employees regarding their union sentiments and the threat of discharge for employees who supported a union.

The ASU is particularly concerned about Sodexho Marriott's record at Xavier University, where food service employees wish to organize with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union Local 12. The Xavier workers and students have asked their college administration to ensure that they will have the freedom to organize without interference or intimidation from managers. Xavier students have been pressuring their administration to cut
ties with Sodexho Marriott and to direct the replacement management company to honor workers' rights to organize without intimidation. The ASU is also committed to supporting other Chicago area "Dump Sodexho" campaigns at Loyola and Northwestern Universities.

According to ASU President Simon Fisher, "This victory proves that students' social justice concerns are taken seriously by administration and their business partners. DePaul students have educated our community about what
our Vincentian mission, the 'preferential option for the poor,' is really about."

DePaul University is the largest Catholic institution of higher learning in the nation, with an enrollment of over 20,000 students. The foodservice contract has been awarded to Compass Group's Chartwells College and University Dining Service Division, who will commence operations on August 1, 2001.
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