Photo by: Michael Furman

Activist students held a mock funeral procession last Tuesday to raise consciousness and possibly get DU involved in the continuing controversy between food employees and Sodexo, which provides food services to the campus.

According to organizers of the funeral, the casket symbolized “the death of worker justice at DU.”

About 75 people attended, most were Sodexo workers and their families.

However, not all DU Sodexo workers support the unionization effort. In one of the comments posted at www.DUClarion.com in a response to an earlier story, anonymous postings said that the union wants “our money,” while others say Sodexo pays fair wages.

The protest began on Driscoll Green and continued across Evans Avenue, carrying a casket, to the corner of Evans and University Boulevard, where the group proceeded in front of the Margery Reed Building for a eulogy.

Brother David Garner, a DU alumnus and monk at St. Benedict in Denver, proceeded over the mock funeral and read the mission and ethics statements of each of DU’s schools, adding that they were “buried today.”

Chris Nevitt, who represents District 7 on the Denver City Council, delivered the eulogy and said he did not think justice on campus was dead.

“Maybe they [DU and Sodexo] don’t know what’s happening,” he said. ” They’re just sleeping. Our job is to wake them up.

Junior Dillon Doyle, who lead the protest, and Sodexo worker Diana Soto, who works in Nelson Hall, also spoke.

Sodexo is the 22nd largest employer in the world and currently faces 12 unfair labor practices filed by the Service Employees International Union and the Federal government.