UConn Students Occupy Building in Protest Over Janitors' Pay By JENNIFER JACOBSON
A small sit-in at the University of Connecticut's administration building entered its third day on Thursday, and students vowed to remain in the building until the university promises to increase janitors' pay.
Andrew Flowers, one of the eight protesters who have occupied the building since Tuesday, said they were willing to miss exams, which begin today, for the cause. "The dignity of our janitors is more important than our grades," said Mr. Flowers, a graduate student of sociology.
He said that for the last four months students have urged administrators to raise janitors' minimum wages to at least $8.47 an hour plus benefits, from their current $6.50. The increase would match the "prevailing wage" in the area -- what workers doing the same job in the private sector earn.
The university uses its own janitors, who earn $16 an hour plus benefits, to clean residence halls, but it hires Capital Cleaners, a private contractor that pays the lower wages, to clean academic and administrative buildings, said Richard A. Veilleux, a university spokesman.
The UConn protest began the same day that students at Harvard University ended a 20-day sit-in of an administration building to demand a minimum wage of $10.25 per hour for all university workers. Harvard officials and students agreed to form a committee of students, union workers, faculty members, and administrators to study the wages and benefits of university employees and to evaluate university contracts with permanent workers and subcontractors. (See an article from The Chronicle, May 9.)
Mr. Flowers said that students at Connecticut had decided to occupy the building after talks with university officials led nowhere. In addition to their demand for higher wages for the janitors, the students have insisted that the university accomplish that without cutting the budgets for other services and departments on campus. They have also asked for a moratorium on subcontracting university or state jobs for a year, or at least until the institution creates a subcontracting council, made up of two students, one administrator, and two union members, to approve all such shifts.
Becky Maran, a senior and sit-in organizer, said the protest is designed to ensure that "everybody here is respected and paid fairly."
Philip E. Austin, Connecticut's president, lauded the students for their social activism and said they have the right to rally for causes they consider important. In a May 3 statement, he said that "it is our job in the administration to seek the means to address those concerns in a manner that does not adversely affect student support, academic programs, research or community service. If students continue to do their job, we continue to do ours, and our elected officials provide resources equal to our many needs, I am confident that we can get where all of us want to go on this issue."
Mr. Veilleux said the university won't know if it will be able to meet the students' demands until it knows its budget, which the state legislature will vote on in June.
But Mr. Flowers doesn't buy the argument that officials can't find money in the budget to pay the higher wage. "It's a matter of priorities, with working people being the lowest priority systematically on this campus," he said.