Students Organizing Against Reynolds (SOAR) picketed outside of the Couper Administration Building on Thursday to protest the use of Reynolds Consumer Products in dining halls and demand President Harvey Stenger to ban the products across campus.

Most of the disposable utensils, cups and plates found in the dining halls at Binghamton University are produced by Pactiv, a subsidiary of the company Reynolds. Reynolds has been accused by workers of using sweatshop practices, such as mandatory overtime and poor ventilation, in its factories. They have also been accused of reprimanding workers who threatened to strike against the company.

SOAR plans on picketing every Thursday until early November, when they will be partnering with other student organizations such as the Women’s Student Union (WSU) to hold a conference about the working conditions in Reynolds factories.

Mary Lister, a senior majoring in sociology and a member of SOAR, said that this protest is important because students have the right to have their voices heard by school administrators.

“It’s important because students need the right to have some sort of say in what goes on on campus,” Lister said. “If President Stenger is supposed to represent us and he refuses to listen to students even when they make the same demands year after year, that’s a problem.”

According to Lister, Stenger has refused to meet with SOAR about the use of Reynolds products, but the organization has met with other administrators and has conducted meetings with representatives from Pactiv to discuss the working conditions of their workers. These meetings with representatives listened to their demands, Lister said, but made no effort to act on them.

Lister also said that protesting is important because students will soon be a part of the workforce, if they aren’t already, and could be dealing with similar mandatory overtime practices.

“It’s also important because these aren’t problems that are going to go away; it’s not like when we graduate we don’t have to worry about mandatory overtime,” Lister said. “That’s when it is going to be even more directly affecting us. So I’d say it’s important because it’s something that unites us both in terms of a student body that should have a say and also as workers who should have a say in their working conditions.”

The majority of employees in the Pactiv factory are women, and SOAR is part of Ain’t I A Woman?!, a national campaign that fights for equal rights for women in the workforce. Ain’t I A Woman?! launched the initial boycott against Reynolds in June 2012.

Shelley Shin, a senior double-majoring in psychology and Asian and Asian American studies, is a member of SOAR. She said that she came to the protest to support the workers at Pactiv.

“I really think it’s important that we have control over our time, and the women that organized this originally were factory workers who were forced to do mandatory overtime; they didn’t have control over their time, which is why I’m out here supporting them as well,” Shin said.

Kai Wen Yang, an eighth-year Ph.D. candidate studying sociology and one of the co-founders of SOAR at BU, said that he became inspired after hearing the stories of former employees who worked at a Pactiv factory in New Jersey with sweatshop practices and were fired after organizing against those conditions.

Yang also said that the lack of response from the administration, despite having meetings over the past five years, has led them to picket.

“How many more meetings can we have?” Yang said. “People graduate. These women are still being fired and still being retaliated against and we shouldn’t drag it out anymore and that’s why we have to picket.”

Yang said that all staff, faculty and students are invited to picket every Thursday from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. in front of the Couper Administration Building.