Protests persist amid labor talks

By Troy Simpson

Students and Santa Clara facilities employees, upset at the outsourcing of jobs to a third-party company, staged the second rally in two weeks last Friday to bolster campus support amid contract negotiations with university management.

"Please don't think this is just another rally. This is all connected. This is our home, our bubble," senior Preshona Ghose said to a crowd outside the de Saisset museum. "These workers have been calling this (university) home longer than any of us have."

Service Employees International Union Local 715 and university officials have been in negotiations since last month and Friday's rally took place directly after one session. Contract negotiations resumed this Wednesday, but according to Eugene Bowers, a general maintenance mechanic who is on the negotiating team, little ground was covered. The next meeting is slated for Tuesday.

The core issues raised by demonstrators last week were essentially the same as those presented in the previous rally, such as the argument that custodial workers should not have to clean the bathrooms of the opposite gender and that workers want more access to their supervising staff.

However, the issue of job security for facilities employees was a much more prominent focus of the rally. Many voiced concerns about the decreasing size of Santa Clara's custodial staff as a result of contracting vacant facilities positions out to employees of Diversified Maintenance Services.

The custodial staff consists of 19 employees, down from 40 three years ago, as the result of facilities management's decision to cease hiring new in-house custodial employees as workers vacate their positions, Bowers said.

In an interview last week, Vice President for University Operations Joe Sugg said no campus employees have been fired or laid off in order to shift positions to DMS.

Still, SEIU Local 715 Union Steward Eugenio Ramirez said allowing the in-house custodial staff to dwindle causes Santa Clara employees to feel less valued by the university and less powerful as a bargaining unit in representing their positions in contract negotiations.

SEIU Local 715 Worksite Organizer Leah Berlanga said the union is not attempting to stop Santa Clara from contracting out some of its custodial staff, but they want to ensure a certain number of in-house custodial employees stay on the payro.

"They think as long as they aren't laying anybody off, they aren't doing any harm, but what happens is there's a lot of things that occur when they do eliminate a position. It doubles the work of the remaining workers," Berlanga said, which she said limits upward mobility.

DMS employees are represented by SEIU Local 1877, receive a benefits package that includes medical and dental coverage, and, according to SEIU Regional Vice President Salvador Bustamante, make anywhere from $8.04 per hour to $10.04 per hour at Santa Clara.

In an interview last week, Sugg said those figures may be the wages outlined in the contract between DMS and Local 1877, but that Santa Clara insists every DMS employee at Santa Clara makes a minimum of $10.40 per hour.

DMS was contacted for comment, but they did not return phone calls.

Santa Clara facilities employees make anywhere from $12.92 per hour to $16.99 per hour and, in addition to a comprehensive benefits package, can, along with their spouses and children, attend Santa Clara courses for free, according to Berlanga.

While Santa Clara facilities employees can send their children to the university for free, many criticized the lack of such benefit for positions held by DMS employees on campus.

"I know there are a lot of students here at the university who are the first in their family ever to go to college because their parents worked hard on this university's custodial and maintenance staff," senior Blair Thedinger said. "We can't give that up because you want to save a few bucks by going to Diversified Maintenance Services."

Berlanga said in the event that management is unwilling to compromise on the issue of maintaining a certain number of custodial employees, facilities workers may opt to strike.

"Our workers had a strike vote last week and they did vote that if it came down to saving their jobs â€" if it came down to fighting contracting out of their positions â€" they will strike," Berlanga said.

Berlanga said Local 715 sent a request to the South Bay Labor Counsel to sanction a strike incase it becomes necessary, but emphasized that a strike would be the union's last resort.

Aldo Billingslea, an assistant professor in the theatre and dance department, congratulated students and members of the campus community for attending the rally.

"These people are our family. What are you going to do when your family is being attacked? It's all about money and because in businesses, when they're focusing only on the bottom line, to just focus on that to makes you ignore the individual," Billingslea said.

Facilities Director Jeff Charles addressed the issue of custodians cleaning the restrooms of the opposite gender in an interview last week.

Charles said there should be no confrontation between students and custodial employees â€" regardless of the gender of either party â€" because bathrooms are supposed to be inaccessible to students while facilities employees are in them.

"Students are not to be in the restrooms while they're being cleaned. That's a safety issue," Charles said.

As for increasing communication with supervisors, Berlanga said there was "some movement on management's side" to make improvements.

Last week, Sugg said workers shouldn't have a problem contacting their superiors.

"The issue of having meetings on equal terms has never been a problem here," Sugg said.

û Contact Troy Simpson at (408) 554-4546 or tsimpson@scu.edu.