Show of hands: Who enjoys walking into dorm bathrooms on Monday morning and cleaning up a mess created by inebriated weekend warriors? For janitors at Tufts, this is their job, and it's a hard one that's essential to the university. However, in the university's recent switch of janitorial service providers from American Building Maintenance (ABM) to UGLUnicco, there has been much controversy as to whether UGLUnicco is upholding its contractual obligation to provide jobs to all eligible former ABM employees.
After an Oct. 25 meeting between Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and UGLUnicco, it has come to light that the organizations cannot come to an agreement about how well obligations are being followed.
Specifically, SEIU and UGLUnicco are reporting wildly different numbers about how much of the custodial staff employed before the switch has remained employed by UGLUnicco. According to the contractor's claims, 33 ABM employees failed to provide required documentation or did not reapply to work for UGLUnicco during the switch. Thirty-two of those slots were filled by the company with temporary hires, according to UGLUnicco.
SEIU says that only six or seven workers have been hired, resulting in the overworking of the current janitorial staff.
Furthermore, SEIU claims that there are about 60 former ABM employees who are no longer at Tufts, not 33.
So who's right? It's not clear. Tufts Executive Vice President Patricia Campbell, in an email to the signers of a petition delivered to University President Anthony Monaco concerning the hiring practices of UGLUnicco, said that "at this time neither party can accurately determine just how many employees on the ABM roster were working at Tufts when the change in contractors was made." As it appears that the parties involved have been surprisingly poor record-keepers, one has to wonder how they will be able to present consistent numbers to the university, and what action the university will take when these numbers are presented.
It's ironic that in requiring workers to display papers to retain their jobs, someone forgot to retain the papers that listed how many workers there were last spring. Once both parties get their collective act together and agree on numbers, Tufts should stick to its stated priority of ensuring that ABM employees are able to retain their jobs at UGLUnicco. Tufts owes that much to some of the hardest workers on campus.
