Hotel Employees Union Informed Negotiations betweenSodexho-Marriott and Evergreen College Break...

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

OLYMPIA, Wa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--August 14, 2000

(Washington, DC) The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees

International Union received the following announcement from the Not

With Our Money Campaign:

EVERGREEN

Students from Evergreen State College declared victory today in a two-month struggle to keep a catering company tied to the for-profit private prison industry from taking over the school's food service contract.

In July, administrators announced that the college was in final negotiations with Sodexho-Marriott Services (NYSE: SDH) over a 7-10 year contract. However, those negotiations broke down on Monday amid growing controversy and threats of a boycott.

Evergreen is the latest in a series of confrontations between Sodexho-Marriott and college students, who claim that the company's violations of workers' rights and relationship with scandal-ridden Corrections Corporation of America make it an unfit provider of campus dining services.

A May 30, 2000 Merrill Lynch analysis identifies Sodexho-Marriott as the 48%-owned subsidiary of Paris-based Sodexho Alliance. Sodexho Alliance is also the largest investor in prisons for profit through its 17% stake in CCA and 9% stake in Prison Realty Trust (NYSE: PZN).

On April 4 the Not With Our Money campaign was launched to raise awareness about Sodexho-Marriott's ties to CCA. Later in the spring, CCA founder "Doc" Crantz resigned from the Sodexho-Marriott board of directors. And in July, Sodexho-Marriott was ousted from the State University of New York at Albany following student-led protests of the company's labor record and ties to private prisons.

The campaign has received broad support from students, and has recently been endorsed by the United States Student Association and the Canadian Federation of Students.

Private prisons make up the fastest growing segment of the U.S. prison and jail population, which will reach two million next year according to a report by Justice Policy Institute. Reports of widespread abuse in facilities run by Corrections Corporation of America and Wackenhut Corrections, including guard brutality, denial of medical care and retention of prisoners beyond the time required by law, have led to calls for a ban on private prisons.

Evergreen professor Peter Bohmer is convinced that student and faculty objections to the Sodexho-prison connection killed the contract. "A large part of the Evergreen faculty, students and staff at this college find it morally reprehensible to buy food from a corporation so closely connected to the use of prisoners for profit. This victory is 100% due to student organizing, and to administration and company fears of massive protests in the Fall."

Senior Malka Fenyvesi concurs, "Students at Evergreen have a long history of standing up for social justice. We know it's people our age who are getting locked up in record numbers. We're not going to stand by while Sodexho tries to profit from their misery."