For the first time in 12 years, the University of Florida is creating a new dining and food services contract. The current provider, Aramark, is deeply embedded in the prison-industrial complex. They provide food services to over 600 prisons, serving food that is unfit for consumption, exploiting nearly free prison labor, and earning themselves civil rights lawsuits due to their operations.
UF students refuse to support such a company any longer. To ensure that the next food service contract is free from the exploitation of prison slave labor, and all labor involved in bringing food to the restaurants and dining halls on campus is compensated fairly, they are boycotting all dining in the Reitz Union. Their demands are an end to the university’s support of prison labor exploitation, a $15 minimum wage for all employees under the contract, a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, more local food sourcing, more purchases under the Good Food Purchasing Program certification standard, and participation in a third party measurement and verification process.
How can you get involved?
Until these demands are met, do not spend any money on food or drink at the Reitz Union. Sign the petition, and send the letter to the administrators.
The full student letter is shown below:
To the University of Florida Administration and the Food Service Advisory Committee,
The University of Florida is a powerful institution that strives to be an example in the state of Florida and nationwide. However, it is plagued by histories of institutional racism that have yet to be substantively reckoned with. On June 18th, 2020, in response to national outcries regarding systemic racism in our country, President Fuchs made a public statement to the UF community that included promises and outlined steps the university is taking to battle racism. President Fuchs declared in the aforementioned statement that “The symbolism of inmate labor is incompatible with our university and its principles and therefore this practice will end.” Although IFAS has ceased its use of prison slavery at UF facilities thanks to grassroots organizing, the University of Florida is still profiting off of “inmate labor” as it is intimately tied to the prison-industrial complex via contracting all on-campus food services through Aramark. While one step towards food justice is celebrated, the University of Florida’s contract with Aramark ignores its despicable track record of human rights abuses that include exploitation of prison slavery and poor treatment of workers.
The University of Florida cannot claim to represent values such as justice and progress without acting to make the institution a more just place. The current food contracting practices that the University of Florida engages in do not reflect any such values. Furthermore, through these harmful contracts, you make the student body complicit in a harmful system that we do not support.
Today, your students continue having to work overtime to hold you accountable to your principles. Although committees, tasks forces, and goals have been established, little to no changes have been made. The UF community refuses to be pacified by your performative statements. Due to the complete institutional disregard for tangible change, the students of the University of Florida will be engaging in a boycott of the food services within the student union until the following demands have been met.
- We demand that the University of Florida include the specifications stipulated by the Food Justice League in the criteria for the upcoming Invitation To Negotiate for campus dining and food services and the resulting contract with the chosen Dining and Food Services provider(s). The Food Justice League is demanding that UF Business Services and the Committee responsible for review of UF’s food service contract add several protections and conditions for its next food service vendor, including a $15 minimum hourly wage for all UF contracted employees; union neutrality clauses; a commitment to decreasing greenhouse gas emissions; justice for farm workers, farmers, and food system workers; an increase in local sourcing of food products; and concrete accountability measures. We echo their demands.
- We demand that the University of Florida specify in the upcoming negotiations for campus food service contractors that the chosen vendor will not be engaged in any prison labor contracts, invest in, exploit, or utilize prison labor in any way. The chosen vendor shall not be in any way tied–monetarily or otherwise–to the prison-industrial complex. The current food service provider, Aramark, has a despicable history of human rights violations and prison slavery exploitation. Aramark presently operates in 600+ prisons that collectively incarcerate 300,000 people (AFSC 2019). Furthermore, Aramark has a record of human rights abuses that includes the exploitation of enslaved prison labor (Ruelas et al. v. County of Alameda; Mother Jones 2020). The University of Florida must swiftly move to disassociate itself from the prison-industrial complex, starting with the demands in this letter.
Your students, the state of Florida, and the world are all watching. The upcoming food service contract negotiations are the perfect time for the university to live up to its rhetoric of justice and progress. The University of Florida should not be proud of its top 10 public school ranking until it cuts financial and professional ties with human rights abusers, including but not limited to prisons and those who partner with them.
Sincerely,
Boycott Coalition:
UF Black Student Union (BSU)
Caribbean, Latinx, and Latin American Exchange (CaLLE)
Chispas UF
Climate Action Gators
Coalition to Abolition Prison Slavery at UF
Dream Defenders
Florida Prisoner Solidarity
Gainesville Food Not Bombs
Gator Chapter of the NAACP
Graduate Assistants United (GAU)
UF Hispanic Student Association (HSA)
Hispanic Student Cultural Organization
Students for Justice in Palestine at UF
Swamp Records UF
UF Women’s Student Association (WSA)
Alachua County Labor Coalition (ACLC)
Farm Worker Association of Florida (FWAF)
Interfaith Alliance for Immigrant Justice (IAIJ)