Tufts students organize janitors

Advocate for increased wages, benefits

By Jack Nicas

In 2001, a student-driven movement to increase the wages of Harvard University janitors made national headlines and inspired significant changes in the school's policy towards its workers. Now, seven years later, Tufts University students are attempting to replicate that success.

The Jumbo Janitor Alliance, a university-recognized student group at Tufts, is fighting to raise awareness for the custodial staff through student-led rallies and a petition to the president with over 1,300 student signatures.

Kevin Dillon, a senior at Tufts and chairman of the Jumbo Janitors Alliance, said the group is organizing because “all janitors in Boston need better wages [and] the industry as a whole needs to increase compensation to deal with rising costs of health care.”

Jeffrey Kim, a student at Tufts and member of the alliance, said Tufts University janitors are paid $14.10 per hour; $9.48 less than the living wage for a single parent with a preschool child in Boston.

Kim said 35 percent of the workers don't receive health care benefits and many are unable to work the more desirable full-time hours. Because of this, many janitors juggle multiple jobs and are forced to travel great lengths, “taking more time away from their families,” Kim said.

Roxanna Rivera, a representative for SIEU 615, the local union representing Tufts janitors, said that the janitors' wages at Tufts are lower than the majority of universities in the area and “given [Tufts' high standing] in regard to the university community, we believe they can do better through the standards which they support.”

If the situation is going to improve, organizers say it must happen now. Contracts between Tufts University and One Source, the cleaning company through which the school contracts its janitors, last four years. This summer marks the end of the current agreement.

Dillon said Tufts strategically scheduled contract negotiations for the summer so “many students, a valuable resource for community action, cannot get involved in the bargaining process and pressure the university.”

As of now, SIEU 615 and One Source sit at the bargaining table in a volatile situation, said Rivera. The union is fighting for the workers demands (increased wages, more full-time work, and better health-care coverage), while One Source is looking to renew a contract with Tufts.

Rivera said, “Because this is such a low-wage industry, contractors are constantly trying to underbid each other for the contract while Tufts can choose at any time to opt out. If the goal is to get the cheapest contractor, the standards for the workers are continuously cut and it's a downward spiral.”

Nevertheless, Tufts denies involvement in contract negotiations. Dillon said, “Tufts strategically made themselves a third party by outsourcing the janitorial services in the early 1990s.”

Tufts President Lawrence Bacow's office refused to comment for this story.

Dillon said the Jumbo Janitors Alliance has tried to work with the Tufts administration several times, but “their official response is that they support the workers, but can't get involved because they believe it's between the contractor and the union.”

“Yet, this is clearly not the case,” Dillon said, “Tufts will only accept responsibility if pressured to do so.”

Ultimately, the janitors alliance is looking to build more solidarity between janitors and students on campus, Kim said.

Yet that may prove to be easier said than done: “Because (Tufts) students are coming from a very different background than the janitors, they aren't necessarily cognizant of what the workers are going through.”

However, he said the alliance has made considerable progress in garnering support for the issue and the group is now “mobilizing people to start sending a clear message to Tufts.”

Dillon has begun a blog on the issue, www.justicefortuftsjanitors.blogspot.com, and there he calls the community to action: “You have the power to pressure the Tufts administration into taking responsibility for its workers. If you call or email president Bacow and let him know that Tufts must prove that all their talk about social justice must be backed up by action, he will listen.”

Rivera said many low-wage workers such as the Tufts janitors are invisible and providing a voice for them is instrumental in ensuring them the respect that they deserve. “I think that Tufts is such a big part of the city of Somerville, that as long as [the school] understands that the community values low-wage workers and their families, it will go a long way.”

Comments

[JPM]

Actually, I was quite surprised to see that janitors get paid $14.10 an hour. That was more than I expected after reading the headline. I respect anyone that gets up in the morning and does a tough job. Having said that Tufts will simply up the cost of their already sky high tuition to pay for any increase. Not everyone who goes to Tufts is a rich trust fund kid!

"Jeffrey Kim, a student at Tufts and member of the alliance, said Tufts University janitors are paid $14.10 per hour; $9.48 less than the living wage for a single parent with a preschool child in Boston."

This is a meaningless phrase! $14.10 an hour for an unskilled position that requires no education at all is pretty good. It is not Tufts obligation to pay "the living wage for a single parent with a preschool child in Boston." When you ask for a raise at work do you say to your boss, "well I have 3 kids and need more money than my single coworkers" or "I am a single mom, I need more money than my married coworkers"...of course you don't. You get paid what the market dictates.

[Dining Services]

At least the janitors are unionized and make better wages than the dining service workers at Tufts. I am not putting down the janitors but the dining service workers, I believe, work harder, have more interactions with the students, are grossly mistreated by their management and play an important role to all who visit Tufts as the "face" of the university.

Hopefully any students that are reading this blog will look into helping these much maligned Tufts workers.

[Kate]

I thought the dining services were run by Sodexho, Aramark or other; I guess not.

[City Slicker]

If janitors do not like their job or the pay or conditions, they can do what the rest of us do:

1) quit and find another job;
2) re-train and find another job; or
3) go back to school and get a better job .

[To: Kate]

You seem to know a lot about outsourcing.

Take it from someone who knows, outsoucing of many individual professions just does not work and in the end has cost most institutions that have gone down that rocky, scummy road more headaches and money in the end.

Just look at Dell computers. They outsourced their customer service network to New Delhi, India! Try and get some satisfaction from that experience, they have no clue about American "lingo" and are about as much help as putting a band aid on a severed limb.

[To: City Slicker]

If everyone had your mindset then there would still be "sweatshops" with child labor, no OSHA, no unions, soup lines and horrible working conditions for most trades and labor jobs.

What's the matter with trying to make the job or institution you are working in now a better place to work?

[Kate]

Sodexho runs the campus dining services at MIT, Babson and Bentley; Aramark runs them at BU; Restaurant Associates does/did run them at Harvard Business School; Compass runs them at Northeastern and I think it was/is Compass that ran/runs them at BC.

[Kate]

Actually, MIT has three difference dining service providers - Sodexho, Aramark and I forget the other one.

[To:Kate]

And your point is?

[Kate]

That outsourcing is alive and doing well.

[Imux]

Any janitor making $50K should never happen. Ask the auto industry or the T what happens when you cave in to a union's silly demands. You go broke OR as in this case; you pass the cost right along to a lot of parents who - some of whom anyway - are struggling to pay for their snotnose kid's tuition and books.

Plus, if Osama Obama gets elected he will be raising taxes on anyone making over $30k. The raise the janitors get (from less than $30K a year to $50K a year) will be illusional as the gov't will just take it all with the increased federal income taxes. They're better off sticking with what they make and avoid the increased taxes. PISSA... ain't it? We will soon be living in a society that disincentivizes one to make more money. I love these progressive democrats (communists).

[City Slicker]

They currently make about $30,000. I would say that is about right for an unskilled position that requires no education.

[jeff]

Please keep in mind that wage is not the main issue with the contract negotiations.

Also, consider the lack of fringe benefits and how many of the workers are only working part time. Thus, rendering them ineligible for any fringe benefits at all.

Regardless, of how you feel about their wages or the injustices of others (like the dining service workers), there is an opportunity to make a certain segment of people's life a bit more reasonable.

For more information check out:
http://justicefortuftsjanitors.blogspot.com/

[To: Kate (Outsourcing Cooties)]

You said that dining outsourcing is alive and doing well.....right?

Tell that to the people that hired Aramark at Fenway Park. How many code and board of health violations did they violate recently? Wasn't it around FIFTEEN? How disgusting!

Dining outsourcing is alive alright.......dirty organisms are alive and well in your Fenway Frank! YECH!!!!!!!!

Outsourcing companies care more about the "bottom line" than the health of their customers!

[Kate]

Yes, it was approx. 15 violations, AND Fenway Honchos were PO'd that Aramark never notified them about the violations, at the time they were incurred. A lot of problems over there. Re: the bottom line -- Fenway is looking for a profit as well. There is a certain amount of $$ that Fenway expects from Armark's sales, any shortfall must be made up by Aramark. So, it behooves them, both, to make $$$.