Summer recess not all fun and games

The University has once again blamed a seemingly innocuous communication gap for its recent conflict with Local 77 union workers. Recently, there have been discussions between Housing, Dining and Residence Life, Local 77 union workers and Marketplace employees about summer work hours between finals week and the start of the first summer session. Although only a month away, it has been decided that Marketplace workers will not work during this interim period. If Rick Johnson, assistant vice president of housing and dining, is correct in saying that there is no legitimate work during this period and that this is not the best use of student money, we agree that changes must be made to work schedules in the long term. However, given the lack of communication to University employees, proper considerations must be made for the short term, including employment in the upcoming interim period.

Typically, Marketplace workers are kept on staff during these two weeks, so it came as a surprise to many that they would not be receiving those work hours this year. A different policy change that would reduce the number of Marketplace employees during regular summer sessions has been scrapped following a petition and worker input. The administration must be held accountable for this late notice, which gives dining employees little time to search for alternative employment opportunities. Instead, the University seems to believe that the larger onus of communication falls upon the union. This is vaguely reminiscent of the housekeeper mistreatment incident, in which communications between the University and union employees was impeded by the lack of an impartial translator. In general, the University is not fully keeping its obligation to communicate to its workers in a thorough and timely matter, regardless of the union’s parallel obligation. Communication about work hours should not stop at telling the union; it should also be communicated directly to the employees by the University.

In the future, the University must balance fair treatment of dining employees with smart finances. The University has a duty to give its staff adequate notice of changes in hours, information that can have a direct impact on their income and financial decisions. Losing two weeks of work can make a substantial difference in an employee’s budgets, affecting rent payments, child care costs and even credit scores.

We do not necessarily disagree that, in the future, the University should not keep staff on during this interim summer period. However, we object to the process by which the decision was reached. This decision should have been reached and communicated to workers much sooner, as the affected time period is merely one month away. This sort of lapse in communication is harmful and can be prevented through relatively simple and easy measures.

Although most of the damage has already been done in this incident, there is still room to make amends. Rather than writing off the workers’ concerns, the University should consider employing the workers during the upcoming interim summer period anyway, even if there is not an abundance of meaningful work available. Short notice for substantial changes in work hours can have a potentially tremendous impact on the financial decisions of dining employees. We have a duty to treat them with more fairness and respect.