Twenty-five people were arrested for sitting on High Street, near Ohio State campus, Thursday afternoon in protest against what protestors deem as unfair labor practices of an OSU-contracted food-service company.
With signs and bullhorns of more than 50 additional protestors flanking High Street, 25 people sat on the crosswalk in front of the Ohio Union’s east entrance.
“We were here waiting for them,” Columbus Police officer Christopher Bowling said. “Each of the students arrested will be reported to OSU Judicial Affairs.”
The protesters consisted of members of the Service Employees International Union and employees of the multinational food-service giant Sodexo, which made more than a half billion dollars in profit last year.
OSU has a contract for Sodexo to provide food-service workers for the Ohio Stadium, Schottenstein Center and other venues. Campaigning for better wages and affordable health care, these workers sought help from President E. Gordon Gee.
Sodexo employees and union members sent an e-mail to request a meeting with Gee that said, “through OSU’s contract with Sodexo, you have the ability to ensure that OSU subcontracted employees are able to organize and collectively bargain without fear of intimidation or discrimination.”
“Gee e-mailed us back and said he would allow no more than four students to meet with him,” said Meghan Day, third-year in computer science and a Sodexo employee. “We expected Gee to be polite and then do nothing about it. But he was rude and hardly let us talk.”
As such, protesters held three large signs with caricatures of Gee drawn over the words “silent on Sodexo abuses,” “refusing to hear our voices” and “turning a blind eye to campus workers,” respectively.
Each of the students that met with Gee was committed enough to the cause to volunteer to be arrested in what the union’s Web site called “the largest act of civil disobedience Columbus has seen since the Vietnam War era.”
“These employees wanted to alert the community of the Sodexo working conditions they face everyday,” the union representative Juanita Sanchez said of the planned protest.
“We started at the library then marched around the Oval before stopping at High Street,” Sodexo employee Sandy Dailey said.
Columbus Police said they found fliers yesterday informing them of the protest. “We knew they planned to sit down on the crosswalk,” Bowling said. “But sometimes protestors back out, so we waited until they actually sat down and caused a problem.”
Cars heading in both directions were forced to stop before police officers on horseback officially blocked traffic. “We didn’t want the protestors there but we had to protect them,” Bowling said.
Thirty seconds after protestors blocked the street, the police read an official warning that began “you are hindering movement of persons on public property.”
Next, officers waited 30 more seconds for the protestors to comply before reading the warning a second time. “They weren’t going anywhere,” Bowling said.
Officers then tapped each of the 25 street-blockers on the shoulder while informing them they were being placed under arrest for disorderly conduct, which is a fourth-degree misdemeanor. The police made sure the protestors knew to come peacefully to avoid further charges.
“They wanted to make a point but didn’t want it to be a mess,” Bowling said. “And neither did we.”
The mission statement for Service Employees International Union is to “improve the lives of workers and their families to create a more just and humane society.” And coordinated chants of “si se puede!” and “yes we can!” echoed the protestors’ collective commitment to those ends.
“Many of these workers are unable to support their families on the poverty wages that Sodexo pays,” SEIU communication specialist Laurie Couch said. “They need a voice on the job and they need respect and dignity.”
As one of three massive international companies that dominate the low-wage service industry Thursday’s protestors work for, Sodexo uses its might to intimidate would-be unionizers.
“The old model of unionizing doesn’t work against multi-national companies like Sodexo,” Couch said.
Poorly treated workers typically form unions to improve their working conditions by signing a petition signaling their intent to vote for one. But there is a four to six week period before that vote that companies use to intimidate its employees, Day said.
As an alternative to this official National Labor Relations Board election process, Sodexo workers opted for a majority sign-up system that uses secret balloting so that companies can’t target individuals. Also called a card check system, this method became an option with the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935 and is used in dealing with larger corporations like Sodexo.
“In the meeting with protestors, Gee said card checks is the soviet way of doing things,” Day said. Once protestors dispersed from High Street, those with Gee signs moved to continue protesting in front of his office.
Thursday’s protest was part of a week of action against Sodexo around the country, which included 14 separate protests in 10 states ranging from New Jersey to California. Each is documented on the movement’s Web site, cleanupsodexo.org.
The OSU protest is of particular interest to the movement. “Ohio State is the largest university in the country,” Sanchez said. “It has the power to influence others.”
