Category Archives: U.Miami: Strike’06

The latest I have heard is that there are about 20 persons inside the Ashe building, primarily students but also including Father Frank Corbishley. The administration is not letting them use the toilets, but they have brought kitty litter.

Here’s what I have on reliable authority: The UM Administration ordered reporters to leave the building at 5pm under threat of arrest. The students stayed. The police have been called, but as of last rumor no arrests had been made–yet. Instead, negotiations are under way.

Things were sort of on hold for a while because of an unrelated nearby incident in which a gunman barricaded himself in a house about a mile up US 1, causing all Southbound (returning commuter) traffic to be stopped at Douglas Raod, which resulted in a tie-up going back several miles to I-95.

I am told there was great coverage on CBS Channel 4, making this one of the rare times I am sorry I don’t have a TV. When I get back home, I’ll try pulling up the online video.

I am told that the Ashe Building, the administrative center of the University, and also the home to many faculty offices in the Arts and Sciences, is currently being occupied by a student group. Here’s the text of an email from an Anthropology professor that is making the rounds,

As of 12:30pm today, a group of approx 20 UM students occupied the downstairs lobby of the Ashe building, and plan to stay there until they can meet with Pres.Shalala regarding workplace justice at UM. They are being supported by about 40 or so faculty, staff, clergy, and union organizers who made it into the building before the Coral Gables and University police arrived and the building was shut down. Currently faculty who have offices and classes in Ashe are being turned away at the door, others are being allowed to enter if they show a University ID. Some members of the UM community are staying inside until 5pm, when a vigil begins outside the building to protect the students in this action. Please consider joining the group of clergy, students, faculty etc outside the building, or entering the building yourself, if possible. Please consider bringing water or food to those inside-when I left a few minutes ago, no one was being allowed to use the water fountains (!) or restrooms (!!). Even faculty who have offices upstairs, and are currently on the ground floor, are not being allowed to leave the ground floor. The Coral Gables police I spoke with inside say their orders come from the University.

The more of us who witness these decisions by the University leadership, the better.

Rumor has it that there were also arrests on US 1 during the demonstration at lunch time.

I am not on campus at present, but will post more when I learn more.

At last, an official statement from Donna Shalala:

A Message from President Shalala

Dear Student,

Welcome back from Spring Break. I hope you enjoyed your time off.

I have some important news to share with you. Last week, the work group I appointed to study wages and insurance benefits of the employees of outside service contractors completed their analysis of the local market and presented their findings to me.

Their conclusions were that some of our outside service contractors were paying hourly wages that were below market, that service contractors were having difficulty recruiting and retaining qualified employees due to low entry wages and minimal annual increases, and that some of the service contractors did not offer low-cost health insurance.

The work group’s findings made it clear that the University needed to take immediate steps to address wages and health insurance for hourly employees working for our outside service contractors.

I am pleased to report that, effective last Thursday, the University adopted and implemented a new policy that sets minimum standards for service contractors doing business on the University’s campuses. The primary components of the new policy are as follow:

• Effective immediately, the minimum hourly wage for all employees of outside service contractors is $8.00 per hour. Housekeepers, who previously had a starting hourly wage of $6.40, now have a minimum starting hourly wage of $8.55. Groundskeepers, who previously had a starting hourly wage of $6.40, now have a minimum starting hourly wage of $9.30.
• University service contractors are expected to recognize performance and length of service in their pay scales. Many current hourly employees are seeing additional increases that put their pay above the new minimums, based on their total years of service. The University will review wage rates annually and update the minimum standards of the policy consistent with changes in market conditions.
• All service contractors are expected to offer health insurance to all of their employees, keeping monthly premiums low in order to encourage high participation by the employees. Contractors are expected to implement the health insurance within a month, which allows a reasonable time to negotiate physician contracts and conduct enrollment activities.

We are very satisfied that this new University program establishes a wage and benefit level that is near the top of the market. The new policy is already in effect, and hourly contract employees are now receiving increased wages. Most hourly contract employees received their pay increases in their paychecks yesterday, and the rest will receive their increases in paychecks this week — all retroactive to last Thursday.

I requested this study as a response to the outpouring of sentiment from our community — students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees, donors, and the clergy. We adopted the new policy because the data and analysis clearly indicated a change was in order, but more importantly, it was the right thing to do. Universities should always lead the way, and providing fair wages and health insurance is a necessity.

It is also important to point out that the University’s position on the labor dispute has not changed. The University remains neutral and is not a party to those discussions. That is an issue to be decided between UNICCO, its employees, and the union.

Finally, I want to assure you that there will be no increase in tuition next year to cover the cost of this new program. Tuition is already high, and we intend to honor all published rates for the next academic year.

I appreciate your input on this issue during the past few weeks. And I know that you support our decision to provide increased wages and health insurance for the hourly employees of our service contractors. I wish I could assure you that the next few months will be quiet, as the union, service contract workers, and their employer engage in a debate over representation. We need to respect the process. Democracy is messy.

Best wishes,

Donna E. Shalala
President

It’s good to have something official, although I’d still like to see the whole text of the actual report.

I think we have to give UM credit here. UM may be a little late to the party (the faculty agitation on this issue started at least in 2001), but they’ve done some good things, and for that we should be happy and grateful. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some fine print to be worried about. The two chief items which jump off the page are the issue of how much “health insurance … [with] monthly premiums low in order to encourage high participation by the employees” will actually cost or what it will offer. The reality — which is no fault of UM’s or for that matter UNICCO’s — is that decent health insurance is increasingly expensive, and might even cost as much or more than some of these raises.

The even bigger problem, of course, is that if you view this move in context, it’s impossible to deny that the only reason this happened in 2006 is that the SEIU came in and organized people. That factor was absent in 2001, ditto 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005. Under the circumstances, it would be irrational for either the SEIU or the workers who support them to give up their drive for a union, as it is now painfully clear that it is only through collective action — headline-grabbing collective action — that they achieve anything.

And the fundamental impasse on the issue of how the workers’ sentiments should be measured (card or ballot) remains unresolved.

I’d like to read the university’s report on pay and benefits for contract workers. I’d like to link to it too. But there’s still nothing on the UM web site. Nothing.

I called UM’s usually efficient Media Relations. “Evlynne” — who wouldn’t give her last name — said that she didn’t know anything about getting copies of the report. And there was no statement available from the university. There is no press release. “Where did the Herald get its information?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she said. There will, she said, be a letter to the faculty on Monday. Then she put down the phone.

In fact, it turns out, the Herald sourced its story to an interview with Shalala. I called the President’s office. The person answering the phone said she didn’t know anything about copies of the committee’s report or a statement, and someone would call me back. So far, no one has.

Is it just that everyone is on vacation (it’s Spring Break) or is this just slightly odd?

It looks as if the requst to professors to move classes off campus is being lifted. That’s very good news for the law school. Here’s what it says at the Picketline Blog:

As many of you may have heard by now, Donna Shalala today announced that the university will set its own minimum wage for all contract employees (not just those employed by UNICCO) and offer them some health insurance. …

This is a step in the right direction. However, we have not yet crossed the finish line and attained a place at the table for the workers. A one-time raise from the University (which, if the details reported in the Herald are true, still does not guarantee a living wage for most campus workers) while a very positive step in itself, is no substitute for the on-going ability of the workers to have a say in the full range of decisions that affect their working lives, let alone for a permanent “place at thetable” where they can ensure that these hard-fought gains do not deteriorate over time.Without successful unionization, it may only be a matter of time before we have to go through this whole process again. UNICCO is still under investigation by the NLRB (indeed, additional charges alleging further labor-law violations will be filed by SEIU tomorrow). The strike continues until UNICCO recognizes the right of the workers to form a union in a manner that is not contaminated by intimidation and ceases its violations of labor law. (Read the SEIU response here.)

What can and should sympathetic faculty members do at this point?

Acknowledging the progress we are making, we suggest that faculty return to teaching in normal class rooms, starting this Monday, March 20th, and that we begin a new series of actitivities and events designed to demonstrate our continued support for the courageous strikers whose preliminary success we celebrate today. We urge everyone to attend and publicize these events as much as they are able.

There’s a number of events listed, and they promise more.

OK – We’re getting somewhere!

Here’s what the Miami Herald has to say:

University of Miami will raise the minimum wages of its contract employees, including striking janitors and groundskeepers, by at least 25 percent, according to a new policy that will apply to about 900 workers.

Some UM janitors and other workers have been on strike for three weeks, in a effort led by the Service Employees’ International Union, which is trying to organize the employees of Unicco Service Co. While union leaders cheered President Donna Shalala’s decision to raise the floor of wages for the workers, they said the strike against Unicco over unfair labor practices will continue.

Under the new policy, the university will raise its current base hourly pay from $6.40 an hour, the current state minimum wage, to take effect immediately. The new minimum pay for food service workers will be $8 an hour; housekeepers will make $8.55 an hour, and landscapers will make at least $9.30 an hour.

Compensation will also be adjusted for years on the job and merit.

Health care benefits, including medical, dental and vision plans, will also be offered to the workers.

The Board of Trustees has already approved the policy, which will apply immediately to all current contracts — some workers will see pay increases as soon as Sunday — and to all future university contractors, University President Donna Shalala said in a interview on Thursday.

”We are going to lead the market,” Shalala said, adding that this wasn’t a policy just for Unicco, but for all of its contractors. The policy, she said, was in response what the university had heard from the community — including faculty, students, religious leaders and the union.

If true this is wonderful news: it sounds UM and Shalala have stepped up to the plate in a big way. Obviously one would like to read the actual report, though.

That’s not so simple.

Oddly, the University of Miami’s usually hyper-efficient publicity machine has no report of this eagerly awaited event on its web page. In fact, if you look at the homepage for the University of Miami you will no longer even find any links to the University’s statements about strike. Ditto, no press release on the news releases page. Over at the “news” page the top story is “New Medical Dean Named”.

But here’s the thing: the current walkout isn’t simply about money. Indeed, as a legal matter, it’s about unionization, not wages. So while this sounds like the University is doing the right thing, whether this will end the current walkout is less clear, since it doesn’t actually go to the specific issue that sparked the strike, which is unionization. And indeed, as the University kept telling us, those issues are between UNICCO and the workers, and UM is just a neutral party…

And this may explain why the SEIU reply to the UM statement, reproduced at the Picketline Blog (run by faculty supportive of the efforts of the current unionization effort) was a little guarded, almost churlish,

SEIU statement in response to UM’s announcement: For the first time since janitors at the University of Miami began their struggle to improve their lives by forming a union, the University of Miami today acknowledged its direct responsibility for the wages and working conditions of workers on its campus. This afternoon a University workgroup convened by President Donna Shalala released a set of recommendations that would set a minimum wage and increase access to some level of health care for contract workers on the campus, including the janitors.

In the report the University did not acknowledge the janitors’ freedom to choose to form a union.
…

The details of the workgroup’s recommendations and the timeline for implementation are not yet clear. A previous University of Miami committee issued similar recommendations involving worker compensation in 2001, but they were never implemented.

So it may not be over after all.

The UNICCO statement (everyone except UM is online with this) is even more hard-nosed and confrontational, starting with the headline SEIU will NEVER Be Satisfied,

President Donna Shalala just announced that almost all of UNICCO’s workers at the University of Miami will see significant pay increases, some by as much as 35 to 45 percent. And they will be eligible for healthcare benefits.

SEIU calls the step “incredible” but not enough. The strike goes on.

What’s with these people?

All along, they said this “strike” – which was never authorized by a secret vote of the workers affected – was about higher pay and healthcare benefits.

SEIU wants more … but it will never get enough. We believed from the start that this action was not about our employees. It was – and remains – about SEIU egos.

We are happy for our employees. But we still say, let them vote in a secret election monitored by the Federal government for fairness. Perhaps the faculty and students who supported the SEIU action will now turn their support to our employees.

Let them vote. It’s what we have wanted from the outset.

More soon, when there’s more to relay…