Custodians at UW
by Anni Mackin
(June 2002)
Though often overlooked and under appreciated, the custodial staff of
the University of Washington is essential for the hour-to-hour success,
health, and overall comfort of the campus. The custodians perform a
large variety of tasks from window washing to vacuuming to trash and
recycling collection, and they face a certain amount of risk from
exposures to viruses from handling toxic chemicals. The University of
Washington employs 615 custodians[1]
who work in over 150 buildings. All of these custodians are required to
be members of and pay dues to the union of Washington Federation of
State Employs (WFSE), Local 1488. Over the phone, I interviewed three
University of Washington custodians, Eric, Cindy, and Roger (not their
real names),[2]
who are members of the Local 1488 WFSE union. Eric, a long time
custodian, was once very active in the union but in the last few years
has become disillusioned with the union and currently only pays his
dues. Cindy, like Eric, has also been a long time custodian. Due to her
schedule, she no longer attends meetings, but she does pay her dues,
signs union petitions, and tries to keep up to date on union issues.
Roger, a custodian for only several years, presents himself as a very
enthusiastic and active union member. He seems to be inspired by the
leadership of the current president of the Local, John Frazier and wants
to build the Local union into a strong and powerful force by making it
more visible to members and University of Washington management.
The Job
The hierarchal structure of the custodial management seems to be as
follows: at the top is the upper management of the University, starting
with the president of the University; under them is some sort of middle
management; below them are the supervisors; and finally the supervisors
have worker leads who help to monitor the custodians. All three of the
members I interviewed seem to hold a high opinion of the upper
management, characterizing them as professional and respectful to the
custodians. The only problem they found with upper management was their
apparent unawareness of what middle management was doing. Middle
management, at best, seems to be viewed as distrustful and unqualified.
Roger went as far as to say they were “corrupted by power” and treated
the custodians as a class below them. He does not like his supervisor
and holds the same opinion of supervisors as he does of middle
management. Cindy likes her supervisor, who treats her nicely, but is
aware of other supervisors who are not so good. Eric doesn’t like his
current supervisors, but sympathizes with the supervisor’s difficult
position of mediating between different workers and management. All
three members believe that supervisors usually are not qualified for
their position, citing that few have ever actually worked as custodians
and, thus, do not have any working knowledge of the kind of labor
involved in custodial duties. They also do not believe that most
supervisors have the communication skills to manage such a diverse group
of workers.
The diversity of the custodial staff is due mainly to the
large number of immigrant workers. Eighty-five percent of the custodians
are considered minorities and many of those are Asian[3].
Eric estimated that close to three-fourths of the custodians on campus
are immigrants. All three members feel that language barriers between
the workers themselves and between workers and management have caused
misunderstandings, distrust, conflicts, and have affected the efficiency
of their work and quality of the job they are able to do. Some of the
supervisors are also immigrants, which seems to further complicate the
issue. For instance, Cindy told of one Ethiopian supervisor who speaks
to the other Ethiopian custodians in their native tongue, causing
non-Ethiopian custodians to feel distrust toward her, because they do
not know what she is saying. Roger explained that they have had to start
using inferior cleaning chemicals in an attempt to decrease the chance
of an immigrant misreading a bottle and misusing a potentially dangerous
chemical. Roger also believes that management segregates immigrants,
allowing for less communication between workers about such things as the
union. The example he gave was that during a strike last year, a group
of Korean custodians did not participate because they had been
misinformed about the strike by their supervisor. This supervisor, who
spoke Korean, wasn't able to pass on any information about the impending
strike because they, as a group, had been isolated and weren't able to
get the information from other custodians outside their own immediate
group. He also thinks that management abuses the immigrants’ limited
knowledge of workers rights to intimidate them and keep them uninformed.
The primary current concern of the custodians about their jobs
is the possible implementation of a new cleaning strategy called,
“Teamwork”. The strategy of “Teamwork” is to divide the custodians into
teams of two, three, or four and then give them a specific list of tasks
to perform throughout a building or even a group of buildings. This is
quite different from the current system of assigning a custodian an area
to clean alone. Middle management believes that “Teamwork” will be more
efficient and help to reduce strain on an already tight budget. Cindy
feels that with the new method, the whole team would be responsible for
getting the assigned tasks completed and because of that the custodians
who are the harder workers will end up picking up the slack for the
lazier and less productive custodians. She also anticipates
communication problems occurring between team members. Roger agrees with
her, citing that in Mary Gates Hall, where they have been experimenting
with “Teamwork” over the last few years, there has been a large increase
in conflicts amongst workers, sometimes even escalating into violence.
Eric, who works in Mary Gates Hall in the “Teamwork” system, does not
mind the system himself, because he enjoys his tasks, but does admit to
not liking it in the past when he was on bathroom cleaning duty. He also
says he has seen an increase in conflicts amongst his coworkers since
the implementation of “Teamwork”. All three members feel that middle
management should have either consulted them or the union before
implementing “Teamwork”.
As far as the actual work of being custodians is concerned,
all three workers expressed that they do enjoy their jobs and get a
feeling of satisfaction from them. They appreciate the benefits that
they receive from the University – such as insurance, the chance to
attend the University of Washington for free, up to a month of vacation
time a year, and eight hours or more of sick leave a month. They also
recognize that compared to other custodial jobs that they are pretty
lucky to work at the University of Washington.
The Union
The base of WFSE is its membership. The members belong to a
local and have a shop steward in their workplace. The steward handles
grievances and helps members with other union matters. The custodial
stewards are divided into areas, so that for every supervisor, there is
a steward. The local has meetings once a month for its members and the
local leadership to discuss issues and possibly vote on and implement
solutions. The local leadership, with member support, handles most of
the issues that come up. Issues that are too large for the local
leadership are passed on to the upper leadership via an area
representative. The upper leadership deals with the issues given to it
by the area representative, as well as organizes and participates in
state legislative lobbying. This model depends on active participation
by members, effective communication between and within all levels of the
union, and strong leadership. Both Eric and Roger believe that some of
these essential elements have been missing and thus have weakened the
union. Eric also believes that many members are apathetic and that this
apathy allows for poor union leadership. He thinks the leadership
concentrates more effort on legislative lobbying, rather than dealing
with workplace or worker raised issues. Roger, on the other hand, is
confident about the leadership, but also feels that because of the
apathy of the members, the leadership finds it difficult to complete
many of its objectives, especially those in the workplace. He believes
that this apathy is, in part, due to the lack of visibility and
communication by the union to its members. He also feels that another
communication pitfall in the union is between the area representative
and the upper leadership causing important issues, such as the
implementation of “Teamwork”, to never even having been communicated or
discussed between them. Whatever the case may be about the union
leadership, both Eric and Roger recognize the need for an active
membership to make the union strong.
The
union’s participation and visibility in the custodial workplace, past
and currently, seems to be lacking. Neither Eric nor Cindy feels that
the union has caused any real improvements in their jobs. As far as the
“Teamwork” issue is concerned, Eric and Cindy both say that the Local
union has taken a stand against it, but has told the members that it is
out of their hands to stop it. When asked about filing grievances, Eric
said he once filed one, but that nothing came of it. He feels now that
if a problem or conflict arouse he would go to human resources before
going to his steward, believing that he would get better results from
human resources. Cindy has never had to file a grievance, but also feels
she would go to human resources before going to her steward. Her
hesitation about going to her steward is prompted by the fact that her
steward is also her worker lead, thus she feels that the steward would
be biased toward her supervisor and management. She does not like that
her steward is a lead and is perturbed by the fact that her steward was
not voted on – unlike past stewards. Roger agrees that the union should
be more visible in the workplace, but he feels that since he started
working, the union has become more accessible. He told me that when he
first started his job that he did not even know his steward. Roger also
expressed a strong, personal dedication to stopping “Teamwork”, saying
that he would be willing to go to the upper union leadership and upper
management himself to petition against it. Roger gave me the impression
that he files many grievances in order to keep his supervisor and
management in check. He admits that the grievances rarely ever come to a
satisfactory end and that this is because the union does not keep
grievances on file to be used as collaboration. Thus, the grievance
becomes the employee’s word against management’s word, with management
usually getting the benefit of the doubt. He said he would not go to
human resources about a problem, because he feels that they are too
connected with the management to be unbiased.
The union seems to communicate to its custodial members in
four main ways: postings in the workplace, petitions, newsletters, and
meetings. The postings hang next to the timecard clock and inform
members on upcoming meetings, events, and important issues that the
union is dealing with. Only Roger mentioned the postings, suggesting
that they are not that visible or informative to members. Cindy spoke of
signing petitions that are sent around by the union, most particularly
the ones leading up to last years strike. It seems as if most of the
petitions are for legislative purposes that, with the high percentage of
minority and non-English speaking workers, might go unnoticed or ignored
for lack of the ability to read or understand them. WFSE sends out a
newsletter informing members on mostly legislative issues that the union
is handling. Both Eric and Cindy skim through the newsletters looking
for information that specifically applies to them, but they do not read
the all the articles and do not seem to fully understand or have
knowledge of what the union is doing in the state legislature. The
meetings are held once a month at seven in the evening at Harborview
Hospital. Cindy says she would go to the meetings if she could, but she
is unable to, because she has to stay home with her children in the
evening and get up early for work, which starts at five am. She said
that at one time the union held women-only meetings on campus during her
work hours and the supervisors would give the women an hour off to
attend them, which she did until they ended. Roger encourages members to
attend meetings, he explains to them that with more member support at
meetings, it is easier to present issues and implement solutions. He
said that for a while he tried holding meetings on the campus during the
custodians’ lunch break, but that the members complained that it was
taking away their lunch time.
Communication with immigrants seems to pose a difficult
challenge to the union. Roger tells me that the union leadership, which
is also highly diverse, recognizes the extreme multiplicity of its
members and has been concentrating on how to fully include all members
in the union. One of the obstacles he feels in communicating with
immigrants is that many of them come from countries that do not have a
favorable view of unions and many of these immigrants do not fully
understand the protection given by unions. Thus, some immigrants are
wary of the union for fear of angering their supervisor or even losing
their job. The language barrier makes it even harder for immigrants to
understand the benefits of the union and participate in union
activities.
The local union, rather than giving its members insurance,
monetary benefits, or recognition awards, tries to reward and engage
them through events and small gifts. The members receive all their
health insurance and pension benefits through the University of
Washington, which does not seem to be a problem for the members I
interviewed. Eric and Cindy do, however, feel that the union could do
more to acknowledge the members’ importance to the union. Eric says that
all the union has given to him, as a member, has been “a pin and a hat”.
Cindy says that the union holds about one picnic in the summer and about
two banquets during the year, with one of these being a Christmas party.
She seems to be only mildly impressed by these events.
One unusual event that was held last year was the one-day
strike. Roger considered the strike to have been more like a picnic
rather than a true strike. He feels that for a strike to be really
successful that it must be spontaneous and bring operations to a stand
still, but he does not feel that striking is a good negotiating tool to
use in general because it hurts members. However, he admits that last
year’s strike increased membership, solidarity among members, visibility
for the union, and helped in the Legislature. Cindy participated in the
strike last year as a way to make management aware of its limits and
also to show her support for the issue of pay raises. She said that
members did receive a slight pay raise following the strike and were
supposed to get a second pay raise, but the legislation for it did not
pass. Eric said he participated in the strike to support his coworkers,
but did not feel strongly about the issues. He did not say whether the
strike helped at all, but did say he lost a day’s pay and his perfect
attendance.
The Future
Eric,
Cindy, and Roger, each differs in their opinions on what they would like
for the future of WFSE Local 1488. Eric believes that the union is on
its way out and thinks that the University of Washington should
subcontract a custodial service that might have better managerial
skills. Cindy wants the union to become more involved in the workplace,
especially with such issues as “Teamwork”, and to become more accessible
to members. She would also like to see union meetings at the workplace
again and possibly more union sponsored events. Furthermore, she thinks
that the union should give out awards to longtime members and for other
contributions by members. Roger feels that in order for the union to
become strong again in its ability to pass legislation, to effectively
bargain on their behalf, and to gain greater support in the workplace
that it must organize a larger, more active membership. He has
ambitiously set out to build this membership by planning to hold more
community events and safety meetings in the upcoming months to make the
union more visible to all its members and less frightening to immigrant
members. Right now, he says he goes around to individual members –
especially immigrants – talking to them about the union and how their
participation is important. He also has plans to try the lunch meetings
again, this time having them be catered. In addition, he wants to move
the postings board that is currently next to the timecard clock out into
a public place on campus, so that all the members plus university
students, faculty, and staff can find out about some of the WFSE issues.
To improve the grievance processes, he wants the union to start keeping
track of grievance and forming case studies on particular managers or
problems, thus making future grievances stronger and more likely to
produce results. Roger's final comment to me was, “The pack is back!”
reflecting his optimism and excitement about increasing member
participation and WFSE Local 1488’s strength.
© Anni Mackin 2002
