Students should support the maintenance and clerical workers of SEIU 888 at UMass Boston. For about three years their union contract has gone unfunded. Their work is essential to the running of this university and they have waited long enough.
Last Friday, Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey made a visit to our campus to take part in the Campus Center ribbon cutting ceremony. A lively contingent of students, faculty, and staff rallied in her presence, waving signs reading, “Contract,” sending a fervent message to the governor about his unwillingness to fund the contract.
It’s unfortunate that the building opening was marked by protests, but these workers have showed more than enough restraint and patience over the last three years. This past fall, the state legislature and the Romney administration finally agreed to fund the contracts for the majority of the unions at UMass Boston – after two years of campaigning on the unions’ part. But the workers of SEIU 888 were left out as the only union that Romney would not grant contract funding.
The workers of SEIU 888 are some of the lowest paid, non-student workers at the university, making an average salary in the low $30,000’s. According to a SEIU leaflet handed out out on Friday, they are “the people who answer the phones, do the typing and filing, repair the plumbing, run the electrical wires, and maintain the grounds.” For some of these workers, the opening of the Campus Center means taking on additional responsibilities. The governor should see that funding the contract and giving these workers their long-overdue raises would be the appropriate and respectful thing to do.
The disregard of the union’s reasonable demands can be viewed as mean spirited and antagonistic. The UMass unions have been at the forefront of the resistance to the Romney’s higher education budget and reorganization plans. Romney’s plans for public higher education, if implemented, could spell disaster for students and for low-income families in Massachusetts who would like to send their kids to college. The UMass unions’ continuous opposition to such budget cuts that would further put higher education at risk is another reason that students should back the union’s request.
Students can proactively support the union’s demand for immediate contract funding by calling or writing Romney and their legislators. Remember, the university would work better for students, and everyone else, if workers don’t feel slighted and unappreciated. What’s right is right, and the governor/state legislature should lay aside past differences with the unions and fund the contract.