Labor strife at Bard College brings out the dirt
By J.p. Lawrence
Every morning, before most students at Bard College are even awake, a small army begins the Herculean task of cleaning the college’s dorms and facilities.
These are the 48 housekeepers and custodians of Aramark, a service company contracted by Bard College to keep the college clean.
Someone, however, is going to need a bigger army to clean up the mess on campus.
For the last 11 months, strained contract negotiations between Aramark and its workers have festered, leading to last Thursday’s rally, where a contingent of students and Aramark workers gathered at the Campus Center to express their discontent.
The point of contention is healthcare. After approving a raise in wages during the first half of negotiations, Aramark negotiators have insisted on an employee healthcare plan that charges employees $836 a month – almost half a month’s salary – for a family plan.
“If your kid gets sick, if he gets the flu or breaks his arm, it’s a huge deal, because you’re left without healthcare,” said Ezekiel Perkins, head of Student Labor Dialogue, which was founded in 2005 to foster a connection between students and workers. “And you can’t pay that out of pocket when you’re making $12 an hour. It’s unreasonable.”
Perkins was preaching to the choir. A group of approximately 70 students and workers gathered for the rally, taking their signs and marching through campus – first through the campus center, then past the cafeteria, stopping at the house of Leon Botstein, Bard College president, before continuing past Aramark’s offices to Ludlow Hall, where the college’s top officials have their offices. Throughout, one could hear the shrill roar of their shouting:
“What do we want?”
“Heathcare!”
“When do we want it?”
“Now!”
"Being a housekeeping in and of itself is very enjoyable, but the fact that in order to put food on my table, I cannot have health insurance for my children – that’s not right!” said Aramark housekeeper Jody Cerasano. “It’s not right! No one should have to live like that!”
“They’re railroading us!” said Debbie Todd, an Aramark housekeeper of 10 years. “I have family health insurance, and I have to work a second job to keep putting groceries on my table while keeping the health insurance for my husband, my son and myself.
“Enough is enough,” added Todd. “This has gone on for too long.”
Soon, the doors of Ludlow were locked, leading union representative Gerard Lyons to declare the rally a success. “We’re rattling them,” said Lyons.
“Anytime we’ve got any social justice on this campus, it’s come from the students,” Lyons said after the rally, citing the successful 2007 campaign by the SLD for higher wages for B&G workers. “The five-day work, the 40-hour workweek, that came from the blood and pain of picketing. Women’s rights, civil rights, the end of the Vietnam War – what took it? It took protests. It took people in the streets. It took rallying … It doesn’t get worked out in some backroom deal. Any time things get worked out in a backroom deal, the workers are getting screwed. That’s been my experience.”
The perspective inside Ludlow is quite different. Jim Brudvig, Vice President for Administration has handled business aspects of Bard for year 20 years. Today that means he deals with various vendors and three contracted corporations: Chartwells, which services the cafeteria; Barnes and Noble, which services the bookstore; and Aramark, a six-time winner in its industry of Fortune Magazine’s “World’s Most Admired Company.”
Since the negotiations, Brudvig has met regularly with concerned students. While he personally wants the labor strife to end as soon as possible, Brudvig has pushed students to look at the larger picture.
“Resorting to rallies and slogans – that’s not helpful,” says Brudvig. “They resort to name-calling, but that’s what rallies do. Does it move the issue at all? No.”
Brudvig said that legally the college cannot do anything about the contract negotiations – not yet. “What can Bard do?” Brudvig said. “It’s a negotiation between Aramark and its employees. We’re not party to that.”
“Bard’s given them a certain amount in wages and now the employees are asking for raises in wages and benefits,” Brudvig said. “That’s the rub. They don’t think Bard’s paying them enough for them to pay their own employees what they’re asking for.”
Brudvig added that while he understands how the cost of healthcare insurance can hamstring a company (Bard College pays over seven million dollars a year on their health care insurance), he thinks Aramark could be a little bit more creative with their healthcare proposals.
“My personal opinion is that there has to be a middle ground on the healthcare premium. It’s not reasonable to expect someone to pay $800 a month for healthcare. A premium that’s half of that is doable.”
“I’m hopeful that Aramark and the union can reconcile this last issue. And if not, I don’t know what happens. If I’m not satisfied that they’ve done their best - I guess all options are on the table, including evaluating the contract.”
Outside of Ludlow, however, hope isn’t enough. “The administration, I think, has been doing a lot of yes-ing,” Perkins said. “There’s been a lot of saying, ‘Yes, we’re going to resolve this, we completely agree - but we’re going to do this in an economic fashion.’”
“Both Brudvig and Botstein agree that this is ridiculous – this needs to be resolved. There just hasn’t been much action,” Perkins said. “I think Jim Brudvig has made some movement to pressure Aramark, but I don’t think he’s done enough, and I don’t think Botstein’s done enough either.”
Perkins said he wants the college to consider shifting the budget to allot more money for the workers, or perhaps fundraising for the workers, or even hiring and managing the housekeepers themselves, as other colleges in the area do.
Brudvig, on the other hand, said he’s had to tell students that the college can’t just hand out more money so that Aramark can give more money to their workers – that’s not how a contract works.
To this, Perkins and Lyons contend that by cutting out the middleman, Bard College could save money by hiring housekeepers directly, thereby taking the money Aramark earns as profit and using it to pay workers. “We would love to be direct employees of the college,” Lyons said. “That’s the ultimate goal.”
“We’re not entitled to the same benefits that other workers at Bard have,” Lyons added. “Look at the B&G workers. They can come and go. They can use the swimming pool. They can use the library. We have to be off campus in 15 minutes after we punch out,” Lyons said. “They’ve made us second-class citizens. And I’m surprised that a liberal college would do something like that.”
Bringing on Aramark workers, Brudvig said, brings additional problems. He contends that in some ways it’s just another way of throwing money at the problem.
“If we brought them over at their current wages and added the Bard benefit plan, it would cost a lot of money,” Brudvig said. “We would add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Bard bill, and who’s going to pay for that? Is that where students want their money to go? I think the students at the rally would think so. I don’t know if that’s the widespread belief on the campus.”
Additionally, Bard College would have to spend time and money to bring their staff to the level of expertise Aramark already has – that’s why contractors are hired in the first place.
That talk is still on the horizon, however. What’s at issue in the current contract is healthcare. Brudvig said he’s looking ahead to the next round of negotiations, when the union brings its own healthcare solutions to the table.
If Aramark can offer a cheaper solution to healthcare, then the issue is settled – for now. If Aramark can’t, then the situation will continue to fester.
Further rallies are expected, as are petitions and phone calls. To this, Brudvig gives his blessing – but with caveats.
“I think it’s salutary that people think of this issue when it’s right in front of them. The people in the Student Labor Dialogue are getting quite an education in real world issues,” Brudvig said. “I only ask students – if Bard teaches you anything – to examine the issue in its fullest context. Make sure you see all sides of a position before you make a public announcement as to the evil intentions of someone. That’s just being fair-minded. And I think the students have been really good at this.”
“As a company, it makes sense,” acknowledged Perkins. “They have no vested interest in being nice or reasonable. They need to make money, and that’s what a for-profit company does. So, it’s not that they’re doing anything wrong. It’s for their own profit margin –that’s their number one priority, which is their shareholders and making money.”
“As a company, it makes sense,” acknowledged Perkins. “They have no vested interest in being nice or reasonable. They need to make money, and that’s what a for-profit company does. So, it’s not that they’re doing anything wrong. It’s for their own profit margin –that’s their number one priority, which is their shareholders and making money.”
In the end, it seems, there’s one thing Aramark, its employees, Bard College administration, and students can agree on: Enough is enough. This has gone on for too long.