Dec
20
A letter from students is on its way across the Atlantic. Students are appealing for a second time to Pierre Bellon, Founder and Chairman of the Board for Sodexo, to help change his corporation’s treatment of its workers in the United States. You can read the letter in English and in French.
U.S. students' letter is on its way to France, where the controversial college contractor Sodexo is based.
In the letter, members of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) from schools around the country explained their minimum expectations for companies employing workers on our campuses:
USAS members expect all workers on our campuses to be treated with respect and dignity. We believe campus workers have the right to earn living wages – wages high enough to support a family’s basic needs – and the right to form unions without intimidation. Where companies have fallen short of these minimum expectations, USAS students have successfully resolved labor violations by urging universities to require that corporations either respect workers’ basic rights, or lose the privilege of doing business with our schools.
On Friday, USAS activists delivered a copy of the letter Friday to Sodexo USA headquarters in Gaithersburg, MD, and requested that CEO George Chavel and his staff meet to discuss students’ concerns and ways to improve the company’s treatment of workers.
USAS members deliver a message to Sodexo USA headquarters, Gaithersburg, MD.
In the letter, students point out that Bellon and Sodexo made no response to USAS’s letter sent April 9 of this year, and that they believe a dialogue would be a productive first step towards resolving problems with Sodexo’s treatment of workers. The students explain that while Sodexo USA has claimed it is “committed to upholding the rights of all workers” and “respects employees’ right to unionize,” in fact the company pays poverty wages to workers at U.S. campuses, and reacts harshly when workers exercise their freedom of association.
Given the company’s lack of response and its persistent problems with poverty wages and anti-union intimidation, students wrote, “USAS was left to conclude Sodexo USA is not committed to respecting basic worker rights, which led us to urge our universities toterminate contracts with [Bellon's] company.”
In the last two years alone, USAS has been able to reach positive outcomes with two major corporations after major worker rights campaigns: Nike and Russell Athletic. The successful results came only after USAS activists compelled universities to stop doing business with the companies until they agreed to change their labor practices. Sodexo itself responded to this sort of pressure in 2001, when it pulled out of a for-profit prison corporation (Corrections Corporation of America) after students forced six universities to drop Sodexo contracts. Students hope for a similarly positive resolution to the current problems with Sodexo’s treatment of workers on U.S. campuses.
