Sodexho-Marriott, Pomona's new food service provider, faces boycotts from students at 10 colleges and universities due to its ties to the private prison industry. Further, the multinational company faces accusations of unfair labor practices, a questionable safety record, and failing to live up to its contracts.

A nationwide effort urging colleges to boycott Sodexho-Marriott is being led by the Manhattan-based Prison Moratorium Project (PMP), an activist group that decries an international trend toward private prison management. Their campus-targeted campaign against Sodexho Marriott, called "Not With Our Money," seeks to encourage colleges to end their relationship with the food service giant. It is set to continue until Sodexho Marriott's parent company, Paris based Sodexho Alliance, stops investing in firms that run private prisons.

"The fight against prison expansion and uncontrolled incarceration is the civil rights struggle of our generation," PMP board member Kevin Pranis stated.

A May 30, 2000 analysis by Merrill Lynch illuminates the connection between Sodexho-Marriott and private prisons. It identifies Sodexho-Marriott as the 48 percent owned subsidiary of Paris-based Sodexho Alliance. Sodexho Alliance, in turn, is the largest investor in several for-profit prisons, with a 17 percent controlling stake in Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and a 9 percent stake in sister company Prison Realty Trust. Additionally, a form filed September 12, 2000 with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicates that Sodexho Alliance recently acquired 100 percent ownership in U.K. Detentions Services, a private prisons firm based in England.

The indirect nature of the company's tie to private prisons has led Sodexho-Marriott to claim that they are being unfairly targeted.

"We own no prisons, and we operate no prisons. We have no workers in any prisons," spokesperson Kathy Boyle said. "The Prison Moratorium Project has targeted us because of feelings they have about CCA…I admire their feelings. They have a good issue. But it's not my company that has any prison business."

Pranis disagrees. "It's true that Sodexho Marriott doesn't own any prisons," he said, "but it's also true that Kathy Lee Gifford doesn't own any sweatshops. Sodexho Marriott argues that they [Sodexho Alliance] are a separate company, but for every dollar going to Sodexho Marriott, almost 50 cents goes to Sodexho Alliance."

In addition, Sodexho Marriott, CCA, and Sodexho Alliance have all had members sitting on one another's boards at one time.

While Sodexo-Marriott has downplayed their ties to private prisons, nationwide boycotts have resulted nonetheless. Last Spring at Indiana's Earlham College, boycotters staged a free pizza party so that students would not spend money in dining halls. At the State University of New York in Binghamton, activists fed fellow students bologna sandwiches. Protestors at Hampshire College in Massachusetts held a potluck outside the dining commons complete with corn on the cob, rice, and beans.

Even larger protests occurred at the University of Albany New York, where private prison protestors combined with students protesting alleged labor abuses by Sodexho-Marriott. The Albany Student Press reported that Sodexho-Marriott representatives ripped down university-approved posters advertising a February 9 meeting where workers could learn about unionizing. Alleging additional abuses of unreasonable work shifts, low wages, and unaffordable benefits, the student activists took to more extreme forms of protest. Seventeen student activists were arrested after occupying the college president's office for five hours.

Even before protests over labor concerns, Sodexho-Marriott's problems at Albany were serious. In the months preceding the sit-in, E. coli bacteria poisoned three students at one of the campuses dining halls. To exacerbate the situation, the food poisonings came only two months after half of the university's six cafeterias failed a county health inspection. Among the infractions were dirty equipment, food stored and served at improper temperatures, and rodent droppings in food storage and preparation areas.

Sodexho has also faced criticism for unethical practices in contract negotiations. In Chicago's School District 300, Sodexho-Marriott told administrators to pay more or find a new food service company. The company claimed that in order to beat out competition the preceding May, they bid too low for the school's contract. Sodexho-Marriott said they were losing money on the district account and could not afford to continue. Deputy Superintendent of Operations Fred Goering complained that the company gave the district little notice of their intent, a move that could have been designed to force the district to retain Sodexho Marriott by not allowing them sufficient time to find another provider.

Despite the growing activism opposing Sodexho Marriott and the discontent that surrounds it, the company remains the largest provider of food services worldwide. Its holdings include $4.5 billion in annual contracts with major universities, hospitals, and corporations. Revenues from university contracts are thought to amount to about $1.2 billion.

Fair labor groups and opponents of private prisons vow that their attack against Sodexho Marriott will continue until the respective problems are remedied. Recent activist victories include a National Labor Relation Board order that Sodexho Marriott change two statements in its employee handbook that forbade discussion of wages with outside sources and made employees promise not to return to the work place during off hours.

Students and faculty at Evergreen State University in Olympia, Washington also succeeded in convincing administration to keep Sodexho from taking over the school's food service. In July, administrators had announced that they were in final negotiations to sign a 7-10 year contact with the company.

Another activist victory was realized whenCCA founder "Doc" Crantz resigned from the board of Sodexho Marriott after the "Not With Our Money Campaign" was launched last April.