Oberlin College students protest “capitalistic” food services company

Ah yes, Oberlin, beacon of social consciousness in northern Ohio, safety school for those who wanted to go to Notre Dame or Carnegie Mellon, doesn’t like that the company that makes its food does so for a profit. God forbid. (Can one still say “God” at Oberlin? I’m not sure.)

Yes, the trust funders at Oberlin would apparently prefer co-op slop.(Just kidding. There is no way the privileged kids at Oberlin will stand for real co-op slop. That stuff is for hippies made of sterner stuff.)

Of course this will only prove a boon to the pizza joints around Oberlin so this protest may in fact be a good thing for free market capitalism. In fact it almost surely is.

But freshmen, er fresh people, er…fresh beings(?) Enjoy that cafeteria food in the meantime. Stalin soup is delicious. It tastes like failure. (You know that feeling you got when you didn’t get into Notre Dame. That taste.)

One note: I have no problem with raising awareness around the prison industrial complex (The company in question supplies prisons and so this is supposedly one of the reasons for the boycott). America’s prison system is a black hole of crony capitalism, and who knows maybe the contract with Oberlin is crony too. But mostly this sounds like the food at Oberlin is sub par and so some students have taken it on themselves to bitch for a better meal plan.

In the name of social justice of course.

(From Campus Reform)

Those concerns were initially articulated at a worker’s panel hosted by SLAC in April, during which Campus Dining Services (CDS) employees complained that Bon Appetit does not value their input, particular with respect to improving food quality.

“You know, they say how they get organic food, but it’s half-rotten when it gets here,” said Milton Wyman, chair of the Oberlin chapter of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which represents CDS staff. “They buy in such large quantities that it sits on the docking lots before they can get it all out.”

“They were just very adamant about issues, and a lot of the issues about Bon Appétit came to light,” SLAC co-chair Jeeva Muhil told the Review. “We know that this is a really important time of financial transition for the College, so we talked about having an action to really raise awareness about Bon Appétit and really put getting rid of it on the table, in a broader sense.”

Click here for the article.

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/