ALL BROWN EMPLOYEES SHOULD RECEIVE A LIVING WAGE AND HEALTH CARE
COVERAGE
“I
was recently asked whether universities should teach values. My response
was that universities, whether implicitly or otherwise, always, always
teach values. They teach values in the way they hire and treat
employees."
-Ruth
Simmons, Brown’s 18th President
“Temp
workers in Facilities Management are getting screwed."
-Anonymous
Brown Office Manager
Brown
University claims to be a responsible employer in the Providence
community. But the people who
work at Brown are currently not being paid wages that meet their
families’ basic needs. And
while Brown considers many of them to be “temporary,” they often work
full-time for six months with no benefits, and no indication of when they
will be dismissed.
Since
the spring of 1999, the Brown Student Labor Alliance has conducted surveys
and held meetings with temporary workers and other low-paid Brown
employees. Some of our findings are startling:
- There
are women supporting children alone who work 30 hours a week in Food
Services for $7.00 an hour and no benefits.
- Facilities
Management routinely hires and lays-off ‘temporary’ workers after
6 months to avoid hiring them as permanent employees. “They’re
playing with people’s lives,” said a permanent Facilities
Management worker.
- Most
temporary workers are doing identical work as permanent employees but
are paid half as much and receive no health care. “What happened to ‘equal pay for equal work’?”
asked a sophomore.
- There
are 350 so-called temporary workers at Brown every day and none of
them receive health care coverage.
The Student Labor Alliance believes that the current
treatment of these workers conflicts with Brown’s core institutional
values. Values play an
important role in many of Brown’s employment policies, including
affirmative action, non-discrimination, and benefits for same-sex
partners. Values should
extend to the Brown employees who are being paid poverty-level wages and
not receiving benefits.
A
recent study from The National Low Income Housing Coalition (www.nlihc.org)
found that by US Government standards of affordability, the wage needed to
afford a modest two-bedroom apartment in Providence is at least $12.28 per
hour. The Student Labor Alliance is asking that all Brown workers
be paid a wage of at least $12.30 per hour and receive health care
coverage. People of color and
recent immigrants comprise a majority of these temporary workers. Brown cannot fully address the issues of race and class on
campus that were raised in the April 2000 Diversity Committee Report
without careful examination and reform of its staff employment practices.
Last
fall, the Undergraduate Council of Students (UCS) and the Brown Student
Labor Alliance requested that a committee of students, faculty, workers,
and administrators be established to examine University employment
policies and implement a living wage policy. The administration created a
Living Wage Committee, but refused to allow faculty and workers to
participate in the committee. Current
committee members are, from the administration, Donald_Reaves,
Janina_Montero, Walter_Hunter, Susan_Howitt, Russell_Carey, and
Roberta_Gordon; from the student body, Joshua_Mandelbaum, Nicholas_Reville,
and Meghan_Woods.
The
Brown administration is not listening to the voices of students, faculty,
and workers in setting its employment policies.
You can help by e-mailing President Blumstein, endorsing the
campaign, and by coming to a meeting of the Student Labor Alliance on
Tuesdays at 9:00 pm in Wilson 301.
Please
ask the Administration to include faculty and employees in this important
campus discussion and work with us to ensure that Brown treats all of its
employees fairly.
