As Georgetown’s decade-long dining contract with Aramark expires in June 2027, the university is looking at potential new contractors to run food operations across campus. While Aramark remains in contention for a renewed contract, Georgetown is also considering Compass Group and Sodexo, two other major dining providers.
Students may be looking at this as an opportunity for new food, but the decision could have deeper implications: each of the contractors has faced allegations of labor violations at universities and other workplaces across the United States and abroad.
Charles Marchetti (CAS ’28), dining committee lead for the Georgetown Coalition for Workers’ Rights (GCWR), explained that so far, the coalition has found little that clearly distinguishes one bidder from the rest.
Those records raise broader questions about Georgetown’s responsibility to dining workers even when they are employed by an outside contractor.
“[Dining employees] may not be employed by the university, but they are providing meaningful, and important, and crucial work for the maintenance and the sustenance of this campus,” Marchetti said. “It is Georgetown’s responsibility to make sure that these workers are being taken care of, even if they’re not being directly paid for and contracted by the university.”
While Marchetti said the coalition is not yet prepared to endorse a particular bidder, he argued that Georgetown should prioritize worker treatment over whichever company presents the most attractive financial offer.
“I think it would be extremely irresponsible of the university and the administration to boil this decision down to a quote unquote ‘business decision’,” Marchetti said. “Many of them have been Hoyas longer than us, and they deserve to be treated as such.”
According to Marchetti, the potential contractors have all promised to employee Georgetown’s current dining staff. However, he says retaining staff is not enough.
“We want to make sure that the staff maintains their wages, their seniority, their pay time off, and we want these promises to be made in writing and not just larger claims that are being just said,” Marchetti said.
The university says students and other members of the Georgetown community have been involved throughout the selection process.
“Georgetown’s current contract with Aramark expires in 2027. The university is currently reviewing proposals from food service providers for moving forward on July 1, 2027, after that expiration,” a university spokesperson wrote to the Voice.
As the university moves closer to selecting a provider, it has also opened parts of the process to broader student input.
“We are currently soliciting input from our student community to help shape the future of Georgetown dining, including through participation in the dining provider showcases and a town hall forum at each campus by each provider the week of September 14,” the spokesperson wrote. “These showcases will be opportunities to meet the finalists, hear their visions for our community and sample featured menu items from their proposals.”
Despite the labor concerns surrounding all three finalists, the university maintains that worker protections will remain a requirement of its next dining contract.
“Georgetown University is committed to ensuring workers are treated fairly under our Just Employment Policy and works with contractors like Aramark on campus to ensure compliance,” the spokesperson wrote. “The Just Employment Policy is included as a requirement in the dining services RFP.”
As Georgetown weighs which provider will operate under those requirements, each of the three finalists brings its own record of labor disputes and controversies.
Aramark
Aramark has provided Georgetown’s dining services for over a decade, employing workers at locations including Leo J. O’Donovan Dining Hall, Epicurean & Company, and the Leavey Center. Georgetown dining workers employed by Aramark are represented by UNITE HERE Local 23.
Aramark’s contract at Georgetown has been marked by repeated disputes over working conditions. During 2024 contract negotiations, workers pushed for higher wages and improved benefits, while workers interviewed by the Voice described understaffing that required them to perform multiple jobs. GCWR members also raised concerns about sanitation and workplace safety, including reports of rodents entering a Leo’s employee break room located near a dumpster.
Lately, workers have reported strenuous and unsanitary working conditions to GCWR. At the same time, DC-based law firm Migliaccio & Rathod LLP announced in July an investigation into whether Georgetown dining employees were denied overtime, sick leave, off-the-clock pay, or compensation for required work. The investigation has not yet found that violations occurred.
The company has been facing scrutiny regarding labor and safety practices beyond Georgetown. Federal records show Aramark Campus was cited for a serious workplace safety violation at the University of Tennessee in 2023, while another Aramark Campus location in California received six citations following a 2026 inspection, including a “serious” violation. A separate ongoing federal lawsuit brought by a Seattle Aramark campus employee alleges the company failed to pay employees for some work during meal and rest periods and overtime. Aramark has contested portions of the suit, and the allegations have not been proven.
Aramark’s correctional food-service business has also drawn criticism. In 2015, the state of Michigan terminated a $145 million prison-food contract with Aramark, following problems regarding chronic understaffing, unauthorized menu substitutions, and employee misconduct. A state audit also found Michigan paid Aramark $3.4 million for more meals than the state’s own records showed were served..
These concerns have made Aramark’s potential return contentious among student labor organizers. In 2016, when Georgetown last considered renewing the company’s contract, students circulated a petition with roughly 2,000 signatures opposing renewal over Aramark’s labor record. A decade later, many of the same questions surrounding worker treatment have resurfaced.
“Aramark has a really poor record as far as their working conditions and their labor standards, so we would certainly be displeased with any sort of continuance of an Aramark contract here,” Marchetti said. “Unless that, when compared to the other three, they managed to provide a better working condition for the workers, but I would hesitate to say whether or not that’s likely or not, given the history that we’ve seen at this university.”
For Marchetti, choosing a contractor with more robust labor practices would ultimately benefit dining employees and the students they serve. He pointed to Aramark’s understaffing, which GCWR says contributes to longer wait times and a worse service quality, as evidence that the two are connected.
“Moving to a more ethical provider, one that is actually creating a safe workspace and a good workspace for their workers, will also give a better product [to] students here,” Marchetti said.
Compass Group
The university is also considering Compass Group, one of the world’s largest food-service providers that operates through subsidiaries including Chartwells and Bon Appétit. Its higher-education portfolio includes campuses such as neighboring George Washington University (GW), where recurring health and safety violations have drawn concern from students over the last few years.
While Compass continues to serve GW, concerns over the company have reached GCWR.
“Compass [George Washington] has seen multiple reports of foodborne illnesses and food quality lapses,” Marchetti said. “Whether that’s inadequate labeling, mice droppings near open food, [or] improper cooling practices.”
Meanwhile, 13 disabled employees lost their jobs at George Mason University after Compass took over from Sodexo in 2025. The employees were contracted with Sodexo through MVLE Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to providing disabled adults with job opportunities. New contracts meant to retain Sodexo employees failed to account for the disabled workers because they were listed as volunteers, and the 13 fired employees were instructed to reapply for their jobs directly through Compass Group.
In 2023, Compass employees across D.C. organized for higher wages and improved working conditions, fueled in part by a survey that found 70% of Compass cafeteria employees at the World Bank lacked money to pay rent. This strike led to a new contract for American University kitchen employees; workers there now earn a $20 minimum wage and are eligible for free health care and paid parental leave.
Beyond D.C., Compass has faced scrutiny for labor violations at universities across the U.S.
“At the University of Minnesota when Compass took over, their discipline rate skyrocketed with a 96% increase in disciplinary actions,” Marchetti said. He also explained that while the dining staff was only 40% female, “female staff [received] over 50% of suspensions and terminations.” According to Workday Magazine, the discipline rate for women of color was even higher than that.
At Northwestern University, hundreds of Compass-employed dining workers went on strike in March 2025 after months without a contract. Represented by UNITE HERE Local 1, workers—many of whom the union claimed worked for the university for nearly a decade— sought higher wages, stronger pensions, and greater job security. Compass defended its proposed agreement as including a 16% raise, increased pension contributions, paid holidays, and sick leave. The dispute followed earlier student organizing over working conditions in 2024, when Northwestern students staged a walkout in support of Compass workers demanding better pay and staffing.
Northwestern dining workers picketed, alleging that Compass had violated labor laws, including accusations surrounding discipline and retaliation connected to worker organizing, though the claims were not confirmed by a court or labor board.
Compass’s labor controversies have also extended beyond U.S. campuses. During a two-year compliance partnership in Australia, the country’s Fair Work Ombudsman, an independent government agency and workplace regulator, received 40 requests for assistance from Compass employees involving issues including alleged underpayment, unpaid work and leave entitlements. 14 cases resulted in more than $51,000 being repaid to workers.
Additionally, Compass has past ties to prison labor, including an Arizona corrections contract that required it to use incarcerated workers in food production and sanitation; however, the company sold 80% of its U.S. corrections business in 2012.
For Georgetown, Compass therefore offers the scale and institutional experience of a major global contractor, but also brings a record of labour disputes and compliance controversies.
Sodexo
Sodexo serves hundreds of schools in the U.S., as well as corporations such as Meta. Sodexo has faced similar criticisms to the other companies, most recently over health violations at another college campus.
At the beginning of 2026, Binghamton University terminated its contract with Sodexo after a campus dining hall failed seven out of eight inspections across five years. Among the reported violations, inspectors reported “insects, rodents present.” Complaints of unsanitary conditions are not unique to Binghamton; workers in the House of Representatives’ cafeteria have also reported finding maggots and rats in their kitchen. An anonymous worker also reported that Sodexo decreased the number of custodial staff at that location.
Sodexo has also faced worker protests at George Mason University. In 2018, dining workers and students delivered a successful union petition to Sodexo management, with workers alleging mistreatment and disrespect from managers, discrimination, and being overworked and underpaid; some also reported having their weekly hours cut while still being expected to complete the same workload.
Violations at other Sodexo operations include a 2017 E. coli outbreak at two California Marine Corps bases, which sickened 243 recruits. Sodexo was also linked to a 2019 listeria outbreak that led to two deaths. The outbreak began after a company contracted with Sodexo supplied contaminated meat to hospitals across the U.K.
Workers at other Sodexo operations have criticized the company for alleged labor violations as well. In 2023, a hospitality union in Florida filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board against Sodexo for alleged union-busting violations. According to workers, Sodexo supervisors at Rollins College led an anti-union rally two months after they had expressed intent to unionize.
In 2023, Seattle’s Office of Labor Standards investigated Sodexo America and SDH Education West over alleged violations involving wage theft, paid sick and safe time, meal and rest breaks, and scheduling requirements at Seattle Pacific University. The companies ultimately agreed to pay nearly $249,000 to 287 employees.
Sodexo’s labor record has also drawn criticism internationally. A 2011 report from the TransAfrica Forum documented allegations that female job applicants in Bogotá, Colombia, were required to take pregnancy tests as part of the hiring process, while workers in Guinea reported segregation between Guinean and European employees. Marchetti pointed to those cases as evidence that concerns surrounding the company have appeared across countries and workplaces, rather than at a single location.
Sodexo has paid over $105 million in violation penalties, including major settlements over allegations of racial and gender discrimination, denied promotions, and unpaid wages.
Sodexo also operates five prisons in the United Kingdom and provides services to 84 prisons across Europe and Chile. At some locations, these services include education and training programs. Still, the company explicitly avoids servicing U.S. prisons to avoid prison labor, according to its website.
