I read, and joined, with warm interest President Roth’s trip down memory lane (“Productive Idealists,” Roth on Wesleyan) as he wrote of the turbulent ’60s and the real changes in our society wrought by students and campus activism.
I, too, remember those days as students stood for meaningful change. As a Vietnam War veteran against the war, I stood with students against a contrived and undeclared war, manipulated by corrupt men, to prop up a corrupt regime, to benefit corrupt businessmen—sound familiar? We stood against racism, intolerance, violence against women, sexism and economic servility. While it may “disturb” President Roth to see students “enlisted” in a labor protest, I clearly remember a march in Salinas for the United Farm Workers with hundreds of students in attendance and Cesar Chavez with Bobby Kennedy leading the column. I’m sure that event was disturbing to University administrators of that day as well.
Then there was the remarkably ill-timed move on the part of Stanford University to dismiss and replace the ringleaders of an attempt to organize the custodial and grounds staff. As I recall it, the university reversed itself in remarkably short time (less than a week) when faced by a campus-wide shut down. It wasn’t the students who forced the reversal; it was the alumni, the tuition-paying parents, and those who write those wonderful endowment checks.
President Roth seems to be surprised that the students would side with the Physical Plant staff. Well, why wouldn’t they? Physical Plant folks relate directly with the students. It is we who go out in the middle of the night to calm a frightened student whose alarm keeps going off; we who go out to restore electricity so a student can finish her senior thesis; we who go out to mop up the vomit in a hallway where a student has suffered a bout of the flu.
And we like the students. That’s why we work here.
Which brings me to the issues: President Roth mused recently that salaries are comparable to other similar institutions—perhaps, in fact, better. This may be true. But Wesleyan’s skill-sets are far higher. Among Physical Plant’s licensed tradesmen are many who have attained multiple State licenses and even the highest Trades license obtainable, including the coveted “One” License, as in P-1 (Plumbing), S-1 (Heating and Refrigeration), E-1 (Electrician) and so on. These are Contractors’ Licenses. These people are entitled by Connecticut statute to go out, hang up a shingle and go into profitable business.
So the issue isn’t solely money.
Recently our bargaining unit leaders had a chance to meet with a nationally recognized labor leader—and, yes, he came to campus. He noted that while the wage portion of contracts nationally in the last few years have been remarkably flat, even if we asked for a five percent, six percent, or seven percent hike, it would have little real effect. The cost of living is going to continue to rise. We are at the precipice of a dollar meltdown of historic proportions. Fuel and food increases are at an all time record. The housing crash has only begun and the war is still burning a billion bucks a week. The only future is to tighten our belts and work together through this mess.
So, the issue is not money. It is value.
Are we valued by this University? When a hired-gun lawyer is the only representative of the University at the last meeting, and his pronouncement was “take it or leave it by April 30,” the question of value arises. (This was the same individual, incidentally, who opined that we all make too much money anyway.)
When the administration offers that it is only “fairness” that a single, working-mom custodian should pay the same insurance premium paid by an administrator earning six figures plus bonus, that word “value” arises. (That statement, incidentally, ranks on par with Marie Antoinette’s inquiry as to whether her subjects were getting enough cake in their diets).
President Roth should know that the people who do not have the Wesleyan health insurance package are standing alongside those who face a 120 percent price increase. The Physical Plant skilled tradesmen have stood alongside the least among us in pay (or perhaps in stature, in the eyes of the elitist well-paid lawyer). Why should it surprise President Roth to see the students standing alongside us?
Those who stood for value in the ’60s and ’70s did indeed change the world—the whole world. Wesleyan students are the best and the brightest—ever. They will change the world in turn. I can hardly wait.
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