Cafeteria Workers Joined by Broad Community Coalition Speak Out on Food Service Multinational Sodexo's Record on Diversity

ATLANTA, April 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On the five-year anniversary of the 2005 settlement of the class action discrimination lawsuit brought by African American managers against Sodexo, community leaders, students and Sodexo workers gave testimony at a press conference and released a new report scrutinizing Sodexo's progress in increasing opportunities for African Americans to advance within the company.

As part of the settlement in 2005, Sodexo agreed to follow diversity and inclusion requirements outlined in a consent decree, which expires today. The report issued by Service Employees International Union, "Missing the Mark: Revisiting Sodexo's Record on Diversity," states, "the proportion of African American managers has increased less than 1 percent between 2004 and 2009 while the overall proportion of minority managers has increased by only 2 percent over the same period."

"I worked with a chef who would pull down his pants, use the 'N' word, and always had this thing about 'you people' referring to us being different from him," said Rubynell Barbee, a Sodexo worker at Morehouse College. "I brought it up with Human Resources but they said since he was part black it was ok. I don't think that it's ok."

On behalf of the renowned civil rights leader Joseph Lowery, the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda read a statement saying, "Sodexo has benefited from the contributions of all of its workers as it became a global food service leader, so it must also recognize that all of its employees deserve to benefit from fair and equitable employment practices."

"In today's economy an individual worker cannot hold accountable an international corporation, which is why a global agreement allowing workers to exercise their human right to organize with their coworkers is a critical piece in creating opportunity at Sodexo -- especially for African American and minority workers," said Harris Raynor, Southern Regional Director of the SEIU affiliate Workers United. "This is a global movement to gain human rights for Sodexo employees and all working families."

Sodexo's efforts to expand its minority clients has been successful in regards to historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Sodexo holds more food service contracts with historically black four-year institutions of higher learning than any other food service company -- providing food services to students at one third of all HBCUs,

SOURCE Service Employees International Union