No janitorial staff cuts

For all its talk about active citizenship, the Tufts administration doesn’t practice what it preaches.

On March 27, Tufts administrators and their contracted janitorial company, DTZ, held a forum with the Tufts Labor Coalition to hear public feedback about the administration’s plan to restructure the janitorial staff.All 150 seats in Braker’s largest lecture hall were full. The simulcast room was full. Students, janitors, parents, professors and local politicians spoke up to protest the administration’s decision to lay off 35 janitors. But the Tufts administration didn’t listen.

Tufts has a long history of exploiting its custodial staff, the very people who keep this campus running. In 1994, Tufts began outsourcing its janitorial staff to private companies. This meant that janitors lost benefits provided to other Tufts employees, such as free tuition for their children. In 1997-98, Tufts switched janitorial companies again and cut wages by 25-30 percent. The administration ignored the community outrage.In both 2008 and 2013, Tufts switched companies yet again; following pressure from the Jumbo Janitor Alliance, the university raised wages 25 percent between 2009 and 2015, and increased the percentage of full-time workers.

This past fall, janitors began hearing rumors that the administration and DTZ were planning to cut jobs. After a teach-in and unsuccessful efforts to communicate with the administration, members of the Tufts Labor Coalition sat in Ballou Hall for over 30 hours to demand that there would be no cuts. To make a long story short, Executive Vice President of Tufts University Patricia Campbell committed to “ensure that DTZ will include job preservation as a top priority as they formulate their reorganization plan for the next five years.”

That commitment didn’t last long.

The administration released a plan that cuts 35 people, which is nearly one in five of the current janitors. No public plans are in place to guarantee full-time job transfers between positions at Tufts or to other positions with DTZ. Tufts lied to us. Job preservation was never its priority.

Most of these workers are low-income women of color. This is not just an issue of staffing; it is an issue of institutionalized classism, sexism and racism. It is no coincidence that Tufts is cutting their jobs before tightening the budget in other places on campus.

At the forum, Lorena Arita, a janitor, spoke of her family.

“As a mother, I have two kids," she said. "One is 20, and one is 12 ... My oldest son is currently studying in college. Listening to the plan that the administration has with DTZ, all my son's dreams will be cut off."

Full-time janitors earn just over $33,000 a year. Many of them work two or three jobs to feed their families and put their kids through college. Patricia Campbell and University President Monaco don’t have to worry about sending their kids to college; according to tax returns, they earn $518,000 and $816,000 a year, respectively. Cutting the janitors’ jobs will impact their families in ways that administrators will never experience.

Tufts needs to balance its budget, but there are ways to do this without targeting its lowest-paid workers. Tufts says it needs to cut one million dollars from its janitorial budget, but was content to pay former president Larry Bacow nearly $1.7 million as a severance package.

Patricia Campbell told us at the sit-in that Tufts has big plans for building new student housing on campus in the coming years. When that happens, they’ll need more janitorial staff. There will be costs to train that staff. Why not keep the janitorial staff now and slowly phase them into cleaning the new buildings as they open? If fewer janitors are really needed, we could even implement a hiring freeze, provide every janitor paid time for training that could qualify them for better jobs, and let natural attrition reduce the janitorial staff on its own. There are fiscally responsible -- and morally responsible -- ways to avoid destroying people’s livelihoods.

I invite students, faculty and community members to join me and the Tufts Labor Coalition in demanding no janitorial staff cuts until DTZ and the union representing the janitors finish the renegotiation of their contract in December 2015.

Tufts, it’s time to practice what you preach and model active citizenship.  At the forum, the community spoke in overwhelming support that there should be no cuts. Now is the time to listen.