Several UW-Eau Claire student organizations are creating a petition opposing Sodexho Campus Services, which now is in contract talks with the university to replace Chartwells as the campus food service provider.

The petition’s organizers, who plan to present the petition Wednesday to Vice Chancellor Andy Soll, say they are concerned with Sodexho providing food and management services to private prisons, which have human rights abuse issues due to fewer regulations.

Amnesty International and Campus Greens, two of the student groups involved with the campaign, have collected several hundred signatures for the petition, said senior Chrissy Smith, Amnesty International president.

“It’s just the whole idea of a prisoner providing a profit for a corporation,” Smith said.

Sodexho, the largest food provider in North America, does not own prisons but does provide food and management services to 17 prisons in the United Kingdom and Australia, according to Sodexho’s official U.S. Web site. The university announced April 19 its intent to make Sodexho the provider of food services on campus, which would replace the current provider, Chartwells, by June 1. Contract talks started Thursday and should resume this week, Soll said.

The anti-Sodexho petition is a part of the “No More Prisons” anti-private prisons campaign, which has involved over 60 schools boycotting Sodexho, They also want students to be informed and for the university to not require students to pay into meal plans if they do not support Sodexho, she said.

Smith and others also are upset with the lack of information from the university about its interest in working with Sodexho, she said. “It worked very well to keep it under wraps,” Smith said.

Sophomore Nate Keiser, a member of the food service committee that selected Sodexho, said open forums were held last semester for students to raise concerns food service companies.

“The problem was people didn’t participate in (them),” said Keiser, who also is Student Senate’s director of Student Services. Sodexho is one of three major food service companies in the country, Soll said, so people should have expected the university to look into working with them.

Sodexho is “a pretty good company,” Soll said. In January, it became the first in the food and facilities management industry to endorse the Global Sullivan Principles, which are a code of conduct for corporations on issues such as human rights. Keiser said he and other Senate members respect the concerns being raised, and thinks the committee made the right decision to go with Sodexho, which officials say offered a much better financial proposal than Chartwells.

“We made the decision on what we thought was best for students,” Keiser said.

Senate President Sarah Schuh, also a member of the food service committee, said there a lot of opinions about Sodexho now but she respects the concerns.

As for current Chartwells employees concerns with how Sodexho will handle their contracts if they sign with the university, Soll said he does not expect problems between Sodexho and the local dining employees’ union.

“(Sodexho has) no interest in steps to bust the union,” Soll said.

Schuh said the food committee will continue to push for good contracts for Chartwells employees.