PRESS RELEASE: RALLY SEPT 9TH!

Press Contacts

d.insurg@gmail.com

Press Release
September 9, 2009

Workers and Students Stand Up Together; Remember Korean Worker

A Group of Students, Trades, Young Workers, and Custodians Fight Against Retaliation and Abuse, and Remember In Soo Chun


After an entire summer of working together, custodians and their families, skilled trades, and students gathered together in Red Square to speak out against speed-ups, excessive work, unsafe conditions, union busting, and management retaliation. Some held signs and spoke about workplace injuries and disrespectful managers, while others held photos of In Soo Chun, a former custodian who self-immolated in front Gerberding Hall, where the President's office is located. Many custodians see their current situation as a continuation of the oppressive environment that In Soo Chun faced prior to his death. Text on the signs echoed this by asking "Who killed In Soo Chun?" and "Gene Woodard, do you remember In Soo Chun."

President Mark Emmert claims to use a "market-driven model" to implement budget cuts, which many claim has put the health and safety of workers at risk. Since January, custodians have been given extra work and much larger areas to clean, trades have taken on more jobs than they feel they can perform safely, and TAs' class sizes have increased. For example, TAs in the social sciences are now teaching 25-40 more students per quarter than in the past; UW tower now only has 5 custodians to clean all 22 floors; and one painter is responsible for 63 buildings. The speed ups and overwhelming workloads have led to a rise in workplace injuries. In addition to concerns about their own safety, some custodians worry that since they have been forced switch to spot cleaning, there is a danger that an outbreak of swine flue could erupt at UW; just yesterday there was such an outbreak at Washington State University. Facing such dire situations, workers have been fighting to improve their conditions. Last May and June, large rallies with hundreds of people drew the attention of the entire city.

But since the rallies last spring, custodians, students, and trades are all feeling the effects of retaliation. Workers say they have been increasingly harassed by managers, who they feel are trying to intimidate them and keep them from fighting for their rights. When workers are ill or have an injury that doesn't allow them to do certain jobs, managers often do not abide by the doctors' notes, saying that custodians must continue doing unsafe work, or face consequences. Gizachew Kassa has said of the harassment that "managers treat us with no respect, like we're not people. If they want to say something, they do not say it privately, they say it in front of everyone. It is embarrassing and unnecessary." Jamie Miller, a painter at the university, is upset that the University is not their contract negotiating fairly. "They keep stalling the contract negotiations. Meanwhile they are contracting out projects to non-union people. This is clearly an attempt to bust the union," Miller said.

Approximately 40-50 people came to the rally, more than many expected, and it lasted half an hour. The brevity of the rally was due in large part to one manager of day-shift custodians scheduling a last minute mandatory meeting at 11:15, in the middle of the 11 AM rally. Wen Liu, a recent UW graduate who helped organize the rally, said, "The fact that this many custodians and trades came out in the face of really nasty and increased harassment is a big deal. This is only the first in a series of actions this fall, where the people of the university are going to confront these abusive and exploitative practices. We expect huge momentum when students return in the fall and see unsafe classrooms, overstuffed quiz sections, and fewer support staff like tutors and advisors; all of which they are paying 14% more tuition for."

The rally was unique because several different sectors of campus came together to support each other and express their collective outrage. Jacob Greenberg, a teaching assistant in History, identified the struggles as interconnected: "We are not just fighting for the other workers on campus. We are also workers, and this 'private model' is making us work inhumane hours and provide a much poorer quality experience for undergraduates." Young workers who attended the rally believe that if they don't fight alongside the custodians, trades, and TAs, then working conditions will only worsen until they will be forced to "work 60 hour weeks, with no benefits or protections against managerial abuse," said Ian Morgan, a school teacher. And when asked why the trades came out to the rally, Miller explained: "We were facing a lot of similar problems, and when we saw the custodians stand up and fight, we knew we had to fight along with them."

PRESS RELEASE-June 11th

The following press release was put out on for the June 11th Rally and Board of Regents Meeting

PRESS RELEASE- For Immediate Release
June 11, 2009

Press Contacts:
Veryl Pow 253 678-4402; visfortruth@gmail.com
April Nishimura 425 281-0500; april.nishimura@gmail.com
UW Custodians Continue to Fight On-Campus Abuse
Unsatisfied with Short-term Victory, Custodians Continue to Fight; Students and Workers to Confront UW Board of Regents

Unsatisfied with the short-term victory gained from the previous rally on May 28th, enraged custodians at UW continue to fight alongside students to retain their nightshift jobs. This Thursday, June 11th, custodians and students will be escalating the fight by directly confronting the Assistant Vice President of Facilities Services, Charles Kennedy, who administers Custodial Services. At the previous rally, over two hundred custodians and students demonstrated to prevent the management of Custodial Services from re-assigning all nightshift custodians to dayshifts on June 1st. The strong and energetic showing at the rally successfully pressured management to temporarily delay the transfer over to dayshift by one month, or July 1st. However, despite this delay, on July 1st, nightshift custodians are set to be transferred onto dayshift, an impractical move for those with second jobs or those who normally take care of their children or aging parents during the day. For some who require second day jobs to supplement the meager $20,000-$30,000 they earn as custodians, the transfer over to dayshift means losing their houses altogether because of the inability to pay mortgages on the custodial salary alone.

Despite strong community support for custodians, management has already laid off 17 custodians, eliminated 29 other vacant custodial positions, and shown its tenacity to push through the transfer to dayshift. Management is retaliating against dayshift custodians who participated in the May 28th rally by reassigning their parking locations. Management is retaliating against dayshift custodians who participated in the May 28th rally by reassigning their managers, and thus their time punch locations starting the Monday after the rally. Whearas previously custodians punched in at or close to their worksites, some have now been reassigned time punch locations much further away, with some (including many women) forced to walk upwards of forty-five minutes in the middle of the night (dayshift begins at 5 a.m.) before arriving to their worksites.
Management has also retaliated by assigning those workers who attended the May 28th rally additional tasks that are beyond their workload. Workers have also been randomly reassigned to new workplaces they have never worked at before.

Additionally, in anticipation of the transfer on July 1st, management has already introduced “team cleaning” among some dayshift workers. “Team cleaning,” in which groups of custodians are assigned specific tasks and work in teams, will replace the current model of custodians assuming numerous duties individually. “Team cleaning” is viewed by management as an adequate measure to compensate for the shorter period of time custodians will have to clean all the classrooms and labs after the transfer. While nightshift custodians now have eight hours to clean classrooms, transferring them over to dayshift means that custodians will only have three hours to clean classrooms and labs before lectures and lab sessions begin at 8 a.m. Many custodians, such as James Wilson, have complained that “team cleaning” instead slows the cleaning process because “management is shoving workers into groups where each [custodian] is unfamiliar with the cleaning techniques of the others.” Furthermore, lab technicians in the Health Sciences building have also voiced concern that eliminating night-time cleaning will interfere with the quality of their research. UW professor of Medicine and Genome Sciences, Mary-Claire King, runs a laboratory in Health Sciences, which brings in millions of dollars to in federally funded grants to the university. She worries that after the transfer, custodians will have to continue cleaning into lab sessions to ensure a clean and safe work environment. According to King, “My lab has 32 people working at lab benches with highly fragile constructs and reagents all day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m…if these custodians had to work around 32 people, it would be madness.”

Management has continually framed the layoffs and transfers as necessary cost-saving measures in these troubled economic times. However, according to custodian Ken Mills, who took part in negotiations with management, “We’re willing to make concessions that will give [the university] the same savings through another method.” In an attempt to save the nightshift, the union representing the custodians, the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) 1144, conceded to give up its night-time shift differential, which amounts to $180,000. WFSE’s concession, attempts to negate the cost-saving rationale behind management’s transfers. In response, management has accepted the union’s offer to deduct the shift differential, but has not held up its end. In fact, it fully intends to carry out the transfers on July 1st. Jane Mee Wong, a member of the Anti-Budget Cuts Coalition, believes that the transfer has nothing to do with the budget crisis, but is “part of a larger, long-term push to squeeze custodians, reducing the number of custodians, and increasing their workload while their real wages and benefits decline.” Indeed, Gene Woodard, the Director of Custodial Services, has said, “It’s been a long-term trend of ours to move buildings to the day shift. We’ve been doing this since 1997…In 1997, we had 35 custodians on days, and now we have 186 custodians on days.”

To add to the doubts of management’s claims of cost-saving, allegations of management corruption have recently surfaced. According to Marla Bradeen, an analyst at the Finance and Business Services, which oversees the expenditures of Facilities Services, “Facilities Services appears committed to cutting services and personnel in order to prove the department’s need to more funding.” She believes that custodial management would rather cut staff and services to create an illusion that Facilities Services was already facing budget cuts and therefore, would be able to retain its full funding. She continues, “Cutting salaries or implementing furloughs may leave the impression that Facilities Services could easily withstand budget cuts and place our department in the position of having to absorb additional cuts in the future.” Thus, neither Charles Kennedy, whose salary has increased 30% over the past couple of years from $200,000 to $260,000, nor Gene Woodard, whose salary is $133,560, face salary reductions, despite the aforementioned layoffs to 17 custodians and the transfer of nightshift custodians to the dayshift. In other words, the layoffs and transfer are visible measures that give the impression of a budget shortfall within Facilities Services, but are designed to effectively preserve the high salaries of management. Marla speculates that this is the reason why the 2.5 million dollar surplus money that Facilities Services has carried over into the fiscal year is not being tapped to save custodial jobs, but instead to “improve infrastructure” such as renovating the Physical Plant Office Building where Charles Kennedy’s office is located. Matthew Hamilton, member of the Anti-Budget Cuts Coalition, believes Custodial Services is moving towards a “top-heavy management structure” where the increase in management’s pay is matched by an increase in the number of managers overseeing a decreasing custodian workforce. Currently ten managers and ten supervisors manage 260 custodians.

According to student Alice Roesch-Knapp, “The custodial situation is a microcosm of how budget cuts are being distributed across the University of Washington. Tuition hikes are making higher education less accessible, and are a sign of how UW is being privatized.” Privatizing the custodial staff would mean the elimination of retirement, benefits, health insurance, sick leave and vacation time and union protection from other worker abuses. Because of the increased privatization of the university, following the confrontation with Charles Kennedy, custodians and students will then head to the UW Board of Regents meeting to challenge the budget cuts expected to be passed earlier that morning. Cuts will disproportionately affect UW’s most vulnerable populations such as custodians and low-income youth by raising tuition levels to 28% over the next two years. In addition, students will be paying more for a reduced quality of education. At least six branch libraries are expected to close, the future of the Disability Studies department is uncertain, and the Women’s Center faces a 50% cut in its budget and the elimination of all work-study positions. According to Jane Mee Wong, “The current budget cuts at UW are not simply an issue of fiscal policy, but one of civil rights and access of the university to women, students of color, and working class students.”

At the Regents meeting, custodians and students will demand that the Regents instead adopt an alternative budget developed by students, staff, and community members that proposes viable solutions to counter the budget cuts. The alternative budget was publicly presented to the Board of Regents at their May 28th meeting. These solutions include a salary cap at $150,000 for those making over $150,000, which alone will save $3.6 million. Both students and custodians are hoping that the Regents will willingly address and adopt their alternative budget. If not, students and custodians will not accept the budget cuts quietly at the Regents meeting on Thursday.

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Anti-Budget Cuts Coalition (ABC Coalition)
The Anti–Budget Cuts Coalition is a broad-based group of students, workers, and community members at University of Washington. We are committed to fighting for alternatives to layoffs, tuition increases and cuts to higher education so that the University remains accessible to students of color, working-class students, women, and queer students.