By Zack Sampson, News Staff

Northeastern’s Progressive Student Alliance (PSA) is again protesting the university’s consideration of food service provider Sodexo for a university contract.

The contract with Chartwells, the company that currently manages dining halls on campus, is up and university administrators are in the process of finalizing a new agreement.

PSA is rallying against Sodexo because they say the food service company has a history of human rights abuse accusations.

“Sodexo has been implicated as a human rights abuser by really respected human rights watchdog groups like Human Rights Watch and TransAfrica Report,” said Claire Lewis, PSA’s campus worker solidarity chairperson.

According to a 2010 report published by Human Rights Watch, an independent, global organization that advocates for human rights, “Sodexo has launched aggressive campaigns against some of its US employees’ efforts to form unions and bargain collectively.”

The report said these campaigns at times included “threatening workers that they can be permanently replaced if they exercise the right to strike for improved wages and conditions.”

Sodexo declined to comment on the issue, saying they could not speak “while in the process of bidding with Northeastern University.”

Sodexo’s website counters accusations of human rights violations in a “Frequently Asked Questions” section, saying, “In North America, Sodexo enjoys positive relationships with a number of unions. We have over 300 collective bargaining agreements with 35 different unions. We respect our employees’ right to organize or not to organize as they may so choose.”

PSA, however, disagrees with the company’s statements, and brought a former Sodexo employee to campus March 28 to speak to students about working for the company. The worker, Carina Meises, was fired from her job at the Barrick Gold Mine in the Dominican Republic, a workplace that uses Sodexo.

Speaking in Spanish to a crowd of around 50 people, mostly comprised of PSA members, Meises described her experience with the company. She is currently working on a national “Sodexo Truth Tour,” managed by the intercollegiate advocacy group United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), and spoke through two translators from USAS.

Meises said she was fired by her Sodexo managers for organizing a work stoppage to protest for better wages and conditions in August 2010.

“They pay miserable wages you can’t support a family on,” Meises said.

She said the company insults its employees and often forces them to work in unsafe conditions without breaks.

“There was never sufficient safety equipment,” Meises said. “Sodexo didn’t want to pay for it.”

Meises also said Sodexo did not seem to care about the rights of its workers.

“I really feel Sodexo is a company for whom human rights doesn’t really matter,” she said.

She further urged students to campaign against the company for its poor food quality saying they they offered “rancid” food to workers in the interest of saving money.

In a question and answer period after her speech, Meises directly addressed Northeastern students, saying they should work to stop administrators’ consideration of Sodexo.

“You don’t want workers on your own campus to be facing abuses,” she said.

Encouraged by Meises’s attendance, a few members of PSA also went to Northeastern’s chief financial officer, Thomas Nedell, March 28 and demanded a meeting to discuss contract negotiations. Lewis said they had repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted to meet with Nedell in the past.

“We decided it might just be a good idea just to go to the office and see if he was there, he could meet with us for a few minutes, and he did, which was great,” Lewis said. “But, it was pretty clear from this meeting that they don’t think it’s important to have a public commitment against Sodexo and to take a stand for worker’s rights.”

Nedell wrote in an email to The News he had “several interactions,” with PSA over the past months, and appreciated the students’ considerations.

“I met with members of the PSA who articulately presented their concerns about ensuring that workers’ rights are protected. I thanked the students for expressing their views on this issue. The university intends to finalize the selection process for this contract in the next two weeks,” he said in the email.

Lewis said PSA has specific labor standards they want the university to include in its next contract, including basic protection for workers.

PSA members in attendance to Meises’s speech said they are prepared to continue protesting Sodexo.

“I think it is very important for workers and students to come together in a fight not only nationally, not only locally, but internationally to make sure that Sodexo is not able to continue these horrible business practices,” Bryan Maccormack, a senior cultural anthropology major and member of PSA’s Campus Worker Solidarity Committee, said after the event.

Another PSA member, middler anthropology major Tu Phan, said Meises speech was inspiring and encouraged him to work to ensure Sodexo is not hired.

Lewis said she did not know the chances of Northeastern contracting Sodexo, but said PSA will continue its efforts if the university chooses the company.

“We’re just going to continue with the campaign,” she said. “We’ll continue raising awareness of Sodexo’s really egregious human rights violations across the globe, as well as on college campuses.”