Cafeteria customers pressure Sodexho Marriott to drop private prison holdings

Sodexho Marriott Services is the largest supplier of food to institutions-particularly university and college cafeterias-in North America. It also owns ten per cent of the world's largest for-profit prison company

By: Ariel Troster

  MONTREAL: Students and other cafeteria customers are being asked to put pressure on North America's largest institutional food service provider to divest itself of holdings in private prisons.
  Opponents of private prisons say cafeterias run by Sodexho Marriott Services may be funding the highly profitable private prison industry.
  Sodexho Marriott Services is the largest institutional provider of food services in North America with $4.5 billion in annual revenue. The company has contracts with 60 universities and colleges in Canada and more than 500 in the United States.
  The French multinational Sodexho Alliance owned 48 per cent of the company's stock until last week, when it announced that it would be buying out the rest of the company. Sodexho Alliance also owns 10 per cent of a company called Prison Realty Trust/Corrections Corporation of America making it a leading investor in the world's largest for-profit prison company. While Sodexho Alliance CEO Pierre Bellon announced last fall that the company would sell its shares in CCA, the company has yet to sell. Sodexho Alliance also owns 100 percent of U.K. Detention Services and Corrections Corporation of Australia.
 

What's the connection between limp fries and an escaped prisoner in Youngston, Ohio? A multinational called Sodexho Marriott Services.

  Meanwhile, Kevin Pranis and the other activists from the Prison Moratorium Project have spent the last two years organizing cafeteria boycotts and demonstrations at university campuses across North America.
  "The ultimate goal is to shut down the private prison industry," said Pranis. "But the immediate goal is to get Sodexho Alliance to divest its interest in private prisons."
  While private prisons have yet to set up shop in Canada, they now control roughly 122,900 of the two million prison beds in the U.S. And on May 5, Ontario's Ministry of Correctional Services signed a five-year contract with Management and Training Corp. - a privately held company based in Utah - to manage the province's new 1,181 bed super jail in Penetanguishene, Ontario.
  Private facilities treat prisoners badly in an effort to cut costs, said Pranis, adding recreational and educational programs are among the first to go.
  "Private prisons are terribly run, and the only way to make money is to cut corners... You just can't cut that much fat out of the operations of a prison."
  CCA spokesperson Susan Hart denied the accusation, explaining that private companies actually save taxpayers money by "cutting the red tape" in prison operations, but she wouldn't elaborate.
  The Prison Moratorium Project is circulating a list of "CCA horror stories" alleging cases where prisoners were harshly punished, or sexually assaulted by prison staff.
  Mother Jones magazine recently ran a cover story about CCA, alleging incompetent staff allowed 20 prisoners to escape from its Youngstown, Ohio facility in broad daylight. Staff also left metal objects near prisoners, which were fashioned into weapons, the magazine alleges. In its first year, 20 prisoners in the Youngstown facility were stabbed and two were murdered.
  "The fact is that corrections facilities, whether publicly or privately managed, have things go wrong," said Hart in response to Pranis' claims. "People die in prison, whether public or private."
  For its part, Sodexho Marriott is quick to disassociate itself from CCA.
  "As of this moment in time, Sodexho Marriott Services remains a separate company. Once the buy out is complete, we will be the North American subsidiary of Sodexho Alliance, which owns shares in Corrections Corporation of America. Sodexho Alliance has pledged to sell those shares [in CCA] as quickly as possible and we are confident that they will do so," said Leslie Aun, media relations officer for Sodexho Marriott.
  Still, Pranis' group continues to dispute the company's claim that U.K. Detention Services, another company owned by Sodexho Alliance, doesn't operate private prisons.
  "U.K. Detention Services provides food service, housekeeping and maintenance to one prison in the UK. CCA Australia currently provides only transportation services to prisons in that country. The bottom line - Sodexho doesn't own private prisons. They provide services such as food, housekeeping and maintenance," said Aun. "Kevin Pranis said at a forum at Ithaca College that he has no problem with private companies feeding prisoners."
  Pranis called Aun's assertion "bizarre," pointing out that U.K. Detention Services continues to run the Agecroft prison in Salford, England, while CCA Australia ran the Borallon men's prison (publicly owned, privately operated) in Queensland and Deer Park women's prison in Victoria (privately owned, privately operated), until the company lost both contracts, and sold the Deer Park facility to the Australian government.
  According to Pranis, both prisons had an "abysmal track record that included drugs, violence and consistent failure to meet the terms of the contracts."
  While PMP's campaign has had little or no effect on Sodexho Marriott's bottom line, Pranis maintains that his group has created "a serious long-term image problem for the company."
  Since the campaign began, CCA founder Doc Crants has resigned from the board of Sodexho Marriott Services, Sodexho Alliance has promised to divest from CCA, and Sodexho Marriott has said they will not renew their membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council, a right wing lobby that supports prison expansion and prison privatization. Over 60 North American universities and colleges launched anti-Sodexho campaigns over the last two years. As well, six American universities have either terminated or refused to renew their contracts with Sodexho Marriott, including American University Oberlin College and Evergreen State College.
  In Canada, students at Concordia University and the University of Toronto have launched anti-Sodexho campaigns. The Concordia Student Union led a campaign focusing on the company's strict exclusivity deal with the university, which prevented student clubs from holding fundraising bake sales. Students also started a vegan food cooperative called the People's Potato, which serves cheap lunches as an alternative to Marriott's cafeteria fare.
  According to U of T grad Bill Fitzpatrick, "decision-making at universities has been limited to administrative or governing councils. They adopt a corporate mentality of making money. There's no consideration of the ethical responsibility of the company. Students have had to play that role and say this is unacceptable."
  But Aun thinks that students are being misled:
  "Students are very concerned about the world they live in and they want to make a difference and that is admirable. However, in this particular issue, they are being misled by an organization seeking to gain publicity for its cause by using inflammatory and often inaccurate information," she said. She encourages students to "lobby the people who make the laws, not the people who make the pizza."
  Still, Pranis is willing to exploit the connection between Sodexho Marriott and private prison companies in an effort to raise awareness about the issue:
  "It's true that Sodexho Marriott doesn't own any prisons, but it's also true that Kathie-Lee Gifford doesn't own any sweatshops," he said.

How campus cafeterias are tied to the for-profit prison industry The French multinational Sodexho Alliance took over the North American operations of Marriott Management Services from Marriott Group in 1998. The merger made the new company, Sodexho Marriott Services, the largest institutional provider of food services in North America with $4.5 billion in annual revenue. Sodexho Marriott Services has contracts with 60 universities and colleges in Canada and more than 500 in the U.S. Until last week, Sodexho Alliance owned 48 per cent of Sodexho Marriott's stock. Last week, the company announced that it will be buying out the rest of the company. Sodexho Alliance also owns 10 per cent of a company called Prison Realty Trust/Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), making it a leading investor in the world's largest for-profit prison company. CCA manages 65 facilities, with an inmate population of more than 53,000, in 21 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The company's revenues were $365 million during the first three quarters of 1999. Sodexho Alliance also owns U.K. Detention Services and Corrections Corporation of Australia.

Ariel Troster is a freelance journalist living in Montreal, Quebec. She just finished a stint as editor of The Link at Concordia University.

Posted: May 14, 2001

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