As our workers begin to make waves in Paris, some major news outlets in the U.S. have already started listening. Over the weekend, both the New York Times and BusinessWeek have written articles on the campaign, meaning that the voices of our workers are clearly being heard.

Yesterday's New York Times article, entitled "U.S. Union Plans to Serve Up a Protest at Sodexo's Annual Meeting" highlights the cooperative multinational effort to ensure union workers have a voice and are being heard by Sodexo at the highest level. The article previews our message in Paris, where we'll show how Sodexo "exploit(s) weak U.S. labor laws," and pays "poverty inducing wages".

While Sodexo counters by stating that they provide "competitive wages and benefits in all of our markets," the article shows that their spin doesn't live up to the facts, and does an amazing job in tying Sodexo's strong financial performance in relation to Sodexo's practices of keeping costs down "by squeezing overhead." These tactics include keeping workers' wages low enough that they could qualify for " government assistance" and "anti-hunger programs".

By contrast, the BusinessWeek article takes a more direct approach, focusing on the growing trend of U.S. labor unions rallying against foreign-owned companies, "U.S. labor unions are starting to export their grievances," the article says. "Companies are coming under attack in their home countries from American unions, which are teaming up with local labor groups to criticize the companies' U.S. labor practices".

The AP also picked up the story, and they give a nice summary here.

As more media outlets pick up on our campaign, there's no doubt that Sodexo will soon be forced to address the growing concerns surrounding the company's practices.