![]() Why do we need community support, since this is a decision to be taken by the university affecting its students, faculty and staff? We know that UF tries to be a good neighbor and respect community values. The Farmworkers Association of Florida, Alachua County Labor Coalition, Rural Women’s Health Project and Gainesville’s Interfaith Alliance for Immigrant Justice are also working with student coordinator Dmitry Podobreev to broaden local support. Leah Cohen, coordinator for the Agricultural Justice Program, found their goals congruent with those her organization has had since 1999 for fair and just treatment of the people involved in agriculture. The committee decided to open the contract to bidding by other vendors, rather than simply discuss renewal with Aramark. In the last few weeks students have had constructive meetings with the committee developing criteria for a new contract. ![]() The student-led campaign has made progress since then. They were encouraged in recent months when Alachua County, the city of Gainesville and the Alachua County School Board adopted the Good Food Purchasing Program, which commits institutional buyers to regard local economies, a valued workforce, health, animal welfare and environmental sustainability. In the course of the year student researchers discovered that Aramark had paid $19 million in fines and settlement of wage theft cases and has exclusive contracts with for-profit prisons where inmates provide food service labor at a dollar a day. Since this contract needed to be renewed for another 10 years in 2021, they organized as the UF Food Justice League.Ī year ago in March 2020, they sent a letter to the university authorities proposing that the new contract stipulate a fair wage for food service workers ensure health, safety and a fair wage for farm workers and require enforcement of existing labor protection laws. They knew that UF is one of the largest food buyers in our region and that everything connected with food on campus from chain restaurants to catered receptions comes under a single contract, currently held by Aramark. We’d like to think that all of them had their fair share of the money we pay when we get our check.ĭoes that always happen? A group of University of Florida students and supporters in the community are working to see that it does on campus. We all learned as children about the food chain, the large number of individuals from growers and farm laborers to cooks and wait staff who brought our meal to us whether we chose fast food or fine dining.
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