On April 22, the university announced that it would subcontract the entirety of its custodial division to work for Sodexo on June 30. The university’s 120+ custodial workers, many of whom have worked at the university for decades, will be let go on June 30. If they choose, they may go through a process and accept a position with Sodexo.
After the university’s announcement, many faculty, custodians, and students have voiced their concerns with the decision. Faculty organizations, including DU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors and faculty from the Department of Spanish Language, have released memos urging the university to void the contract with Sodexo.
AFSCME, the union representing the custodians, has also been organizing public actions with various custodians. The union has also accused the university of violating its contract and engaging in unfair labor practices.
James has been an AFSCME representative for over ten years and claims to know DU’s clients very well. He said the union is not interested in “effects bargaining” with the university, which is bargaining that commonly occurs when workers are laid off.
“I wanna be clear, we are not interested in effects bargaining with them,” said James.”We don’t want to bargain with them because it’s illegal; what they’re doing is illegal.”
The university has reiterated this decision was a business decision. In town hall meetings on April 23, university representatives said their existing contract with Aramark was not favorable, so they decided to fully subcontract all custodial work to Sodexo. Right now, Aramark manages the employees, while DU handles payment.
With the Aramark contract ending on June 30, the university faced a choice. It could have hired a new company similar to Aramark to continue managing the employees or tried to run the custodial operation completely in-house. The latter option would have required substantial time to find and train managers — time the University claimed it did not have. Instead, the university subcontracted both the management and employees to Sodexo.
The university has said it will require Sodexo to offer workers matching salaries and comparable benefits. However, there are various differences in the two companies’ benefits packages. Sodexo’s retirement plan has a 6% match guarantee for money the custodians put into their retirement accounts, and DU had an 8%. Also, while DU and Sodexo have similar deductibles for their cheapest insurance plans, DU’s out-of-pocket max for individuals was around 4500 dollars, while Sodexo’s is 9450 dollars. While these benefits are worse, Sodexo may charge its workers less monthly premiums than DU did.
Many of the custodians are also worried about whether their college-age kids will be able to attend DU after they transition to Sodexo. When custodians accepted employment at DU, they were guaranteed a substantial tuition benefit to help send their kids to the university in the future.
Sodexo does offer tuition benefits for employees to use, and can be redeemed at any school the workers choose, but that amount will likely be less than what DU offered as a discount to its tuition.
“Some of these workers have been here for 10 or 15 years, and they have kids in high school now. Part of the deal was to see a future here for their children because DU is considered a really good school. If I have my kids in elementary school, I’ll just stay there long enough so when they graduate, they’ll be able to go to school there,” said James.
On May 22, Aaron Schneider, DU professor and president of AAUP’s DU chapter spoke to local radio station KGNU about the process. In the interview, he discussed his knowledge of what custodians are feeling and the events leading up to the University’s decision.
“Custodians love the students, the university and the professors. They are so proud to be a part of this community. Being outsourced, being subcontracted, one custodian said they’ll quit because they don’t wanna be a part of a university that doesn’t want them to be a part of its community,” said Schneider.
Schneider also discussed the university’s recent inability to fill its custodial positions. Last year, the university declared 30 custodial positions “unfillable” and redistributed the work amongst the remaining custodial staff. By September and October of this year, employees reported having trouble dealing with the new workload.
The university says it hopes Sodexo, with its national presence, will be able to fill these needed spots more efficiently.
Schneider sees the custodians as some of the least-paid and most vulnerable workers on campus.
“[AAUP] has written a letter to the Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor of facilities to express our outrage at an effort to balance the University budget on the backs of the lowest paid, largely women, Latina, immigrant workers.”
The union has also levied a discrimination claim against the university for the decision.
“What other way would you look at this if we have 185 workers, 125 of whom are predominantly monolingual Spanish-speaking women from Latin American countries? And the 60 people that the university is leaving are predominantly caucasian, English-speaking men… What would you call that? Seems like discrimination to me,” said James.
On May 22, various custodians, as well as some from the Student Union for Progress, gathered to speak about the change and march outside Mary Reed Hall. There will likely be another picket this week in the evening for morning shift custodial workers.
Alongside the letter, AAUP invited AFSCME and various custodial workers to participate in its most recent meeting. It is also encouraging its members to wear green and show up to AFSCME actions.
