This follows a string of other awards for the Company and staggering statistics highlighting its massive global presence. It employs 380,000 employees in 80 countries, on 33,990 sites and serves 50 million customers every day.
Meanwhile in the US Sodexo’s operating profit in its North American food and facilities business fell by 8.6%, making it the only one of Sodexo’s four geographic segments to suffer such a decline in its mid-year financial reports. (By comparison, Sodexo’s operating profit in Continental Europe increased by 24.3%).
http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2010/04/26/333138/sodexo-boosts-interim-operating-profit-by-32-in-uk-and-ireland.htm
Clearly the giant has been wounded by the US SEIU led campaign. Workers have been victimised and dismissed for organising trade unions on Sodexo worksites and 2/3rds of Sodexo workers themselves receive no heath care. In the UK workers in Richmond School Meals Service are leading a fight to end the 2 tier workforce operating in such contracts run by Sodexo. Workers and UNISON Organisers are working in Richmond to get sick pay and other conditions that have been lost through outsourcing.
As the UK braces itself for the result of a very bitter and very close general election, life for Sodexo workers will not be changed by the outcome. Outsourcing and massive profit will continue for Sodexo (and its counterparts in the public sector industrial complex) and so the imperative to get organised in a union is the same around the globe.