If you’ve ever been locked out of your room, needed a light bulb changed or wanted a hole in your townhouse wall patched up, then you’ve most likely encountered one of the 33 members of Fairfield University’s maintenance staff that keeps the school in shape every day.
Few students are aware of the ongoing negotiations over wages and job security between representatives of the Department of Facilities Management and the Fairfield administration that date back to September of last year.
On Aug. 7, 2012 the 33 members of the maintenance staff voted to join Local 30 International Union of Operating Engineers. The vote passed with a majority of about 27 votes.
The union has been representing the maintenance staff in routine negotiations ever since. Negotiations last week saw administration offer the Maintenance staff a 1-year initial contract, an offer the University sees as fair, yet the staff was not prepared to take the offer.
“It started over the last five years. One year we got a percent raise, one year we got no raise,” said Pat Bike, who has been representing the department of energy within the maintenance staff during negotiations with Fairfield administration.
Bike and the other representatives are not the only ones who have felt the cutbacks from the recent economic troubles that Fairfield has gone through. Administration acknowledged that financial difficulties have caused cutbacks.
“Over the past few years it’s no secret that the University, as well as everybody else, [have] been dealing with financial difficulties,” said Mark C. Reed, Senior Vice President of Administration and Chief of Staff. Reed also highlighted in a letter to a member of the maintenance staff, “no one in the Facilities Department was laid off during some of our most difficult times.”
Although it is true that maintenance received no layoffs, it has seen employees leave Fairfield or retire without their positions being replaced.
According to Ryan Lyddy, representing the department of grounds, this loss of staff leads to more “in-house jobs” being outsourced to contractors “because we simply don’t have the manpower.”
Reed explained that using outside contractors to handle bigger jobs is a normalcy in both the public and private sector, for the sole reason that the staff is too small. Although maintenance agreed with Reed on this particular issue, they are upset that Fairfield does not offer these jobs to them before looking for outside help.
“We have to work with outside contractors, we have a good relationship with outside contractors,” said Lyddy, “but when they’re telling us there’s no overtime and then there’s outside contractors doing the work … just give us the opportunity first before you go to outside contractors.”
Administration disagrees with that. “The facts don’t support those claims,” Reed said.
Fairfield’s maintenance department employs carpenters, energy, utilities and grounds workers. Tim Craig, an employee of the Fairfield for 15 years, represents the department of carpenters in the negotiations.
“We went through the tough times when money was low, we’re dedicated to this place,” said Craig.
Aside from campus, the maintenance staff is also responsible for the Fairfield-owned houses off-campus and Fairfield College Preparatory School. Furthermore, Fairfield’s overall square footage has increased significantly since the senior members of the staff have begun working here.
With less staff and more square footage than ever before staff members are finding it more difficult to work under their current circumstances.
“I’ve been here 12 years, and since I got here they must have added 5 buildings to the campus,” John Minopoli, representative of the department of utilities, said.
While Reed said that their offer is fair, members of the maintenance staff feel as if they are “being stretched.” They are calling for the student body’s support, citing the Jesuit value of men and women for others.
With job security as one of their top priorities, the maintenance staff isn’t ready to settle for less than what they see fair, meaning last week’s negotiations will not be their last.
Reed says, “I don’t know how much longer [negotiations] are going to take.”
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