UH Students for Fair Trade convinced the Student Government Association Senate to pass a resolution, which was eventually compromised, calling for the planned coffee kiosk in the M.D. Anderson Library to be all fair trade and to include information about fair-trade certification at all coffee locations.
Fair-trade certification is done by a nonprofit third-party organization, Transfair, whose certification guarantees coffee farmers the right to organize, an increase in wages and safe working conditions. Public information requests reveal Vice President for Student Affairs Elwyn Lee has subverted this resolution and that there are tentative plans for the library budget to pay for the outfitting of a Starbucks in the library.
An e-mail dated April 08, 2004 to UH Dean of Libraries Dana Rooks revealed "the library plans to fully fund the (Starbucks) and will be responsible for the necessary building and equipment maintenance costs…. The startup cost of approximately $59,000."
This is an old e-mail, but a student inquired about these tentative plans last fall with Rooks and was told there still has not been a final decision – which means the library paying for the installation of a Starbucks is still a viable option. This is obviously a gross suggested misuse of student tuition dollars, but also makes us wonder – why use a Starbucks, which cannot meet an all-fair-trade requirement, at all? We and other UHSFT members assumed the reason a Starbucks would go in regardless of an SGA resolution is because Starbucks or Aramark, which will own/operate the Starbucks franchise in the library, will pay the "build out and startup cost." Since that is not the case, what could the benefits of a Starbucks possibly be?
According to a document drafted by the previous food-concessions provider, Chartwells, a "library Starbucks Cart will make the library more appealing to many students, this may result in more students studying in the library, thus increasing the University GPA." This is an example of the type of ridiculous claims a food-service provider will make to get another profitable location on campus at students’ cost.
It is not a secret the current food-service provider, Aramark, holds Starbucks near and dear. At an SGA meeting last spring, the head of operations for UH Aramark, Alisdair MacLean, told students that by kicking Starbucks off it would cost Aramark a lot of profit. Ignore any ethical concerns you may have about coffee farmers and pay attention to our profits ,is what MacLean meant.
To make matters worse for the SGA resolution concerned with coffee, Lee gave the University Coordinating Committee the choice to ignore it. If ignored by the UCC, the resolution would never make it to the UH president’s desk, and, as administration planned, never become UH policy. Lee wrote in a letter to the president of the Faculty Senate and chair of the UCC, Joseph Kotarba, "UB44002 addresses the issue of the sale of fair-trade coffee… it is unclear to me whether or not the UCC wants to address this issue." The letter is stamped "received" on Aug. 28, 2007. It is clear by reviewing the minutes of the UCC meetings that Kotarba decided to ignore the resolution.
The October 2008 UCC meeting minutes show multiple SGA resolutions were reviewed; however, the fair-trade coffee bill is nowhere to be found on the agenda.
Administration does not plan to have the multi-billion dollar corporation Starbucks or Aramark pay for the "build out and startup" of the Starbucks. They plan for the student to pay for this corporate welfare, and, what’s worse, they have subverted the democratic process on campus to do it.
We suggest, if students have to pay for the startup of the coffee location, we make the proposed coffee shop in the library completely student-run, allowing for it to sell only fair-trade certified coffee. This would also allow students to manage their own coffee shop and could direct the entire overall profits to the library – instead of the 2.5 percent proposed if a Starbucks is in place.
UH President Renu Khator has asked for campuswide input for her first 100 days in office. One step to address the clear subversion of shared governance on campus would be to meet with UH Students for Fair Trade and have Lee attend.
UH students for fair trade members Ross Barnard, Trey Pharis and Markos Mendoza contributed to this column and can be reached via [email protected].
