Students arrested defending workers’ rights

Students at Emory University hit Sodexo Corp.’s poverty wages. Photo: kickoutsodexo.usas.org

Bulletin: On the night of April 25-26 Emory University police raided the tent city that Students and Workers in Solidarity had set up to focus attention on the abuse of cafeteria workers by the Sodexo Corp. The cops tore down their banners and knocked over their tents. According to Emory graduate student Andrea Nicholls, the students were told by a school official to vacate the area in two minutes. There had been no previous communication or warning about their use of the Quad area. Seven people were arrested, including Nicholls. The three women and four men were released from the Dekalb County jail on bail at 11 a.m. on April 26.

Calls can be made to Emory President James Wagner’s office at 404-727-6013 to condemn the arrests and support students’ and workers’ rights.

April 25 — On the emerald green expanse of lawn known as the Quad at Emory University, in front of the administration building, a circle of small tents decorated with banners and signs declares support for campus workers. Members of Students and Workers in Solidarity (SWS) have maintained this encampment around the clock since April 20.

That day a protest was called to bring attention to the violations of food service workers’ rights by the giant multinational Sodexo. It started with a rally featuring student activists like sophomore Alex Zavell, who laid out the conditions the workers face: low-pay, unaffordable health insurance, arbitrary and discriminatory treatment, and anti-union harassment. The workforce is mostly female and African-American.

Zavell traced step-by-step SWS’s efforts over more than a year and a half to engage the Emory administration to take action to address these issues. The university holds itself out as an institution dedicated to ethical behavior and promotion of human rights.

However, President James Wagner has repeatedly replied to charges of poverty wages and unfair working conditions that this was a matter between Sodexo and its employees. SWS has called out this hypocritical stance, since the university was fully aware when it signed a contract with highly profitable Sodexo that the subcontracted wages and benefits would be minimal.

The students are pressing for the contract to be terminated and for the university to establish a labor code of conduct that would guarantee all those who work at Emory, whether direct or subcontracted, certain rights and wages.

The April 20 rally was also addressed by Isaac Farris Jr., nephew of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Representing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Farris offered the support of the respected civil rights organization and made clear the importance Dr. King placed on the right of workers to organize for a living wage and respect on the job.

Another speaker cheered by the crowd was State Sen. Vincent Fort, a long-time progressive activist whose battles on behalf of poor and working people are well-known.

Students stage occupation

before encampment

Following the rally, students, Emory alumni and supporters crowded into the fourth-floor hallway of the administration building, seeking a meeting with President Wagner. Told he was away from campus for the day, students occupied the area right outside his office door.

University Vice President Gary Hauk, spotting a woman in her sixties, asked who she was. Perhaps he thought she was an “outside agitator”? But Emory alumna Ann Mauney treated Hauk to the long, sordid history of Emory’s treatment of campus workers, particularly the food service employees.

Mauney recounted for all in the hallway to hear that when she came to Emory as a freshman in 1967, students were campaigning to alleviate the minimum wages and racist treatment suffered by cafeteria workers, who were direct employees of the university at that time. She chastised Emory for persisting in maintaining a culture of poverty for service workers at one of the wealthiest universities in the country. Hauk turned and walked away.

For the next several hours, students maintained their vigil, past the closing of the building. Eventually school administrators called the police, who arrived in bullet-proof vests, in multiple squad cars and accompanied by a “paddy” wagon. The students continued to resist and delayed their departure from the building for more than another hour.

Upon leaving the administration building late Wednesday night, they set up tents, strung their banners over the building’s main entrance and began their Workers’ Solidarity encampment.

The administration building has been on lockdown ever since, with police at all the doors, and entrance allowed only with Emory identification and a confirmed appointment. Even visiting parents with perspective students have not been able to get into the building.

For five days now, with the number of tents growing to include locations for food, information and a study area, SWS has engaged thousands of students, faculty and staff about the issues raised by Sodexo’s multi-million-dollar contract with Emory and its exploitative treatment of the workers, almost all of whom are people of color. The student newspaper, the Emory Wheel, has covered the protest and encampment extensively.

The Quad will be the scene of Emory’s graduation ceremony on May 9. Students are preparing to oppose efforts to dismantle their camp. They are already planning to raise the campaign at graduation when Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano is the commencement speaker.

Students at other schools are similarly engaged in militant actions in support of campus workers. For example, also on April 20, students at William and Mary College in Virginia occupied the president’s office, demanding a living wage for the housekeeping staff. The private college had five students arrested when they refused to leave.

On April 21 students at Tulane University in New Orleans conducted a sit-in, demanding “Kick out Sodexo” from their campus.

On April 11, students at Northeastern University stopped their school from contracting with Sodexo because of its documented human rights abuses toward workers around the world.

For more information, go to www.usas.org.