14/04/2009

Truth about sodexo

The truth about Sodexo = please note Peter Collins (Echo) drummer boy for Metrix

War Profiteer of the Month:

Sodexho

"Sodexho is committed to Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and in developing Public Private Partnerships (PPP), both as a Facilities Management (FM) service provider and as an equity investor" Sodexho UK website.

Without British and American government policies over the last twenty years encouraging the privatisation of public services known as Public Private Partnership, Sodexho would probably have stayed an inoffensive medium-sized catering company. 'Privatisation' and the lucrative contracts that go with it have turned Sodexho into a multinational giant

The Military

Apart from helping Multinationals exploit natural resources, Sodexho's Remote Site Management also help pave the way for the military, In this area, the U.S. Military are their biggest customer. The Center for Public Integrity reveals that Sodexho won a US$324,000 contract to provide food and equipment in Afghanistan.

In 2001, the US Marine Corps also awarded Sodexho Inc. an US$850 million contract to serve meals at 55 Marines Corps mess halls. They also support t the French army and UN's KFOR in Kosovo, NATO in Kabul, and the US forces in South Korea, as well as supplying the 379th Expeditionary Contracting Squadron in Qatar.

Enviromental destruction

Sodexho has contracts with numerous natural resource exploiting companies such as BP Amoco, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum, Shell, Texaco, Bechtel, Daewoo, Hyundai, Caspian Drilling, Rio Tinto and Halliburton. One of Sodexho notably un-environmental projects includes collaborating with the destruction of mangrove swamps on Bonny Kingdom, at the southern edge of River State, in the Niger Delta of Nigeria.

Prisons

The prison industry accounts for 1% of Sodexho's total revenue. In addition to providing ancillary services (food, grounds keeping, etc.) to a number of prisons throughout continental Europe, Sodexho Alliance owns for profit private prison companies in the U.K. and Australia. Overall, Sodexho have some involvement with ninety one prison facilities in the U.K., Australia, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and the Netherlands.

Anti-Unionist

At http://www.workersliberty.org/node/2719yo can find information about the anti-unionist policy of Sodexho.

So war, prisons, anti-unionism and oil. All this and so much more!!
For more information http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=347

A now KEY partner is Sodexo, is a foot soldier for the prison industrial complex and racist immigration policies. SODEXO accused of supplying catering at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Sodexo has also come under fire in Britain for its management of the Harmondsworth Detention Centre, the largest deportation center in the U.K. From that facility, asylum seekers from Zimbabwe, Iraq, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and many other impoverished, war-torn nations have endured the "worst" conditions ever reported by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons. They are deported in military jumpsuits on military planes back to airports to areas of their countries they are not familiar with. Often, they are not adequately checked for signs of torture and testimonials indicate many have disappeared or been killed after extrication. - The process is called "fast track deportation" by U.K. bureaucrats.

At least seven detainee suicides have taken place at Harmondsworth and in 2006, the Inspectorate found that the Sodexo guards had only two noose-cutters in the 500 bed facility.

Sodexo history here

Sodexos treats its staff very badly e.g.

Support GRI Sodexho workers

A Message from North Glasgow Hospitals Branch, Unison

To all friends and supporters,

300 staff employed by private contractor Sodexho at Glasgow Royal Infirmary struck for 2 days this week in pursuit of a pay claim, including the demand of restoration of full NHS Whitley equivalent Terms and Conditions, £5 hour minimum wage, 5% or £1000, 35 hour week; abolishing the 2 tier workforce. Our members currently earn £4.20- £4.67 hour, with minimal sick pay, no shift allowances, time 1⁄4 only for overtime etc., All of their conditions were hived off for profit for Sodexho. Their Chief executive, Pierre Bellon, has an estimated personal wealth of £1.3 billion.

Sodexho, a multinational company who profit from private prisons, detention centres as well as hospitals and other public services across the world, cynically planned in advance to try and undermine the strike with scab labour from across Britain. They flew people from Liverpool and Ipswich as well as other areas in England. Some were from Fife and Gleneagles. They were put up in Hotels and paid £10 hour, well over double the pay of our members. We are reliably informed that quite a number came from the Liverpool Women's Hospital particularly. We have evidence that many of the scabs had no NHS experience, food hygiene certificates or other relevant training. We raised serious Health & Safety and security concerns. Scabs with no means of identification were put on security duty!

Human Rights record? Separate but Equal: Alive and Well at Sodexho Feature Story from civilrights.org Racism

Last year, Sodexho settled one of the largest racial discrimination lawsuits involving managerial promotions. The plaintiffs claim that the company illegally and systematically passes over African-American employees in favor of white employees for promotions, even when the white candidate has less seniority and fewer qualifications than the black candidate. In addition, African-Americans who are promoted to managerial positions are segregated to worksites in traditionally black areas, like inner-city schools and historically black universities.
The racism permitted by Sodexho goes beyond promotion practices. One high-level manager said that African-Americans are genetically inferior to whites, and generally most of the criminals in the world are African-Americas.

Sodexho

THE WHOLE system behind the vouchers for refugees is designed to put profit before need. Sodexho, the French conglomerate which administers the vouchers, took over US firm Marriott in 1998. Workers were not allowed to join the union and were banned from talking about their working conditions.

The firm was forced to back off after the US labour relations board condemned this suppression of free speech as unconstitutional. However, Sodexho continued its union busting operation by organising strike-breaking of New England hospital workers. Now US university students have targeted Sodexho as part of their campaign against sweatshops.

Sodexho supplies campus dining services, and is also the largest investor in US private prisons. The students have forced Sodexho off campuses at Evergreen State University in Olympia, south of Seattle, and at the State University of New York. Let's keep up the fight to scrap New Labour's vouchers and score a victory against a multinational firm.

ITHACA, BUFFALO STATE

Students sit in against prisons

AFL-CIO NOW BLOG | AFSCME Wins Food Service Outsourcing Fight at ...Every day, we face intimidation and racism at work. ... reason the employer chooses—the Sodexho workers labored in fear of retaliation and intimidation when ...

Corporate Watch : Sodexho : Corporate Crimes Sodexho attempted to break the strike by flying in scab workers from up to 400 miles .... An alliance of anti-racist and anti-deportation groups, churches, ...

Student campaign against Sodexho, a French multinational which is one of three global giants that dominate institutional food services, focused on its ownership of private prisons (which the company still operates in England and Australia, despite its divestiture from the Corrections Corporation of America). Vulnerable because of the campaign, Sodexho also faces further problems if it resists unionization of its workers by HERE. Recently the president of Xavier University in Ohio instructed Sodexho to recognize the union if a majority of workers sign union cards.




And what does Pete Collins have to tell us!!

French partner in defence college project wants good relations with St Athan

Caterer wants good relations

THE head of the French contract catering company which is a leading partner in the Defence Technical College project at St Athan has said team work and good relations with the community will be vital.

Sodexo was appointed a joint equity partner in the Metrix consortium, which will build and run the £12bn college at the former RAF base. It replaces Land Securities’ Trillium which withdrew from the project last December.

The appointment raised some eyebrows in the City and elsewhere because Sodexo had previously been a non-equity partner in the project, responsible for “soft” facilities management such as cleaning, security and catering

The truth about METRIX
Another metrix partner
War Profiteer of the Month: Serco

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