As bargaining between Facilities Management and the University on a new labor contract continues this month, the question of who will staff off-campus University buildings — Facilities or an outside company — is increasingly important. Showing support for the workers, the Student Labor Alliance has collected more than 500 signatures in a petition for workers to staff off-campus properties, said alliance member Andres Villada '13.5.
In general, Facilities maintains buildings that are entirely devoted to University use, Marisa Quinn, vice president for public affairs and University relations, wrote in an email to The Herald. But for University-owned buildings that also house commercial tenants, the University hires Cushman and Wakefield, a management firm that offers services such as collecting rent from tenants and providing custodial staff.
Currently, at least four University-occupied buildings are not staffed by Facilities employees. Negotiations have centered on 121 S. Main St., a building almost fully occupied by the University except for Hemenway's Restaurant on the first floor, said Karen McAninch '74, business agent for the United Service Allied Workers and a representative of Facilities in the contract negotiations.
McAninch said custodial positions at 121 S. Main St., as well as other off-campus University buildings, should belong to Facilities workers.
"That's our work," she said. "We maintain the properties of Brown University."
McAninch said she doubts that outside employees are paid the same rates as Facilities workers, whose pay ranges from $14 to $25 per hour.
Quinn declined to comment on the pay of Cushman and Wakefield employees and other issues surrounding the negotiations in order "to ensure the integrity of that bargaining process," she wrote. But she added that a requirement of the University's contract with the management firm is that their employees are unionized.
"There is precedent for Brown to rent out space and continue to have Facilities do the maintenance," McAninch wrote in an email to The Herald. For example, New Pembroke 4 houses Blue State Coffee as a tenant on the first floor but is maintained by Facilities.
McAninch wrote that the Facilities union would work with Cushman and Wakefield workers to keep them from losing their jobs if their positions at University buildings were transferred to Facilities.
Villada said there is "overwhelming student support for this cause." The Student Labor Alliance has distributed posters and flyers for students to hang on their doors, so workers can see that students support them.
"This is something that needs to be brought to the attention of the school," he said. "How workers are treated says a lot about how the school is run."
— Additional reporting by Gadi Cohen
