Somerville Mayor Dorothy Kelly Gay and Cambridge City Councilor Marjorie Decker pledged support to the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM) Tuesday night during a forum to advance contract negotiations with OneSource.
An estimated 80 students, faculty, custodians, and community members attended the forum - one of SLAM's last attempts to mobilize student support for campus custodians before today's contract negotiations deadline.
If officials from the custodians' union and OneSource, the private company Tufts hires to provide custodians, cannot agree on terms today, the custodians will begin working without a contract. The date for negotiations has already been pushed back for three months.
In addition to Kelly Gay and Decker, the forum attracted Massachusetts State Senator Charles Shannon, and Somerville Board of Alderman President Kevin Tarpley. Students, professors, and custodians also spoke at the three-hour meeting in Pearson Hall.
Kelly Gay, who is up for re-election next month, said she cares about the issue because she picketed for Tufts custodians in 1994, long before she was elected mayor. Kelly Gay commended SLAM, saying Tufts is not treating its custodians fairly. "It's an injustice and we do have to stand up to it," she said. "I pledge my unwavering support in your actions to get equitable benefits and wages."
Decker, a Cambridge city councilor, also put her support behind SLAM, saying a university's purpose is to create a more civil society. Decker, who worked in Cambridge last year on the city's Living Wage campaign, said that working without a living wage is a national trend. "It's happening everywhere," she said. "Tufts is not so different."
Decker, who left a candidates meeting to speak at Tufts, told the Daily that she hoped SLAM would create a "rippling effect" of living-wage campaigns.
The forum began with a 20-minute film produced by state Representative Pat Jehlen in 1997. It documented protests and picket lines by Tufts custodians in 1997, when the University switched custodial providers from UNICCO to OneSource, and the new company dismissed 110 custodians. Many of those fired had worked at the University for over ten years.
SLAM is demanding job security for custodians if the University changes service providers again, citing the 1997 lock-out of Tufts custodians. Other demands include putting standards of labor in writing, improving wages, family health insurance, sick day allowances, and expanding full-time work opportunities.
Two custodians spoke with the group about their experiences. Junior Alice Bajana translated for the workers, who explained the difficulty of holding multiple jobs, and their need for family health care and sick days.
One custodian told a story of a co-worker who had to return to work ten days after a serious operation. In addressing the need for job security, another custodian said, "We do not want to be treated like an old pair of shoes and thrown away. We do our jobs with dignity."
In 1999, Kelly Gay's first year in office, Somerville passed an ordinance that guaranteed city employees, contractors, and service contractors receive a living wage of $8.35 per hour. The rate was to be adjusted annually to federal poverty guidelines for a family of four and the annual average increase in area consumer product indexes (CPI).
Economics Professor Frank Ackerman addressed the cost of SLAM's proposal saying that the $300,000 they want the University to spend amounts to less than one percent of the University's $445,000,000 annual spending.
Ackerman said it was implausible that the University could not find money to pay for the cost. "It boggles the imagination," he said.
Dividing the cost over Tufts' 8,157 students, he said it would cost about $37 per student per year in tuition increases. Ackerman, who is looking at potential colleges for his daughter said, "No one ever said to us that my college is $37 cheaper."
Sophomore Ariana Flores received applause when she said that the University's president receives in benefits more than twice what an individual custodian makes in a year. "I would like to see President Bacow pick up a mop for just one day, and we'll talk to him then," she said.
Political science Professor Gary McKissick said Tufts should not separate the issue's moral and economic implications. "Universities are not corporations, at least they're not supposed to be," the first-year professor said. "We've basically chosen to take the most vulnerable population in our midst and treat them worse."
McKissick also addressed the need for health insurance because the US, he said, has made the historical accident of aligning health insurance with a person's career. He stressed the inequality of giving some Tufts employees health insurance and others not.
"It doesn't matter who we are," he said. "Sickness strikes us all."
Shannon and Tarpley attended the panel for an hour, but Halpern scheduled them to speak last. The political figures left without speaking and Halpern said she did not know they were constrained by time.
"The only thing I regret, is not having known the [political] etiquette," Halpern said. "I'm happy they heard, and learned and listened and saw."
