Princeton is a multi-faceted institution, but more than anything else it is a very human community in which students, faculty and members of the staff work together to pursue the University's missions of teaching, learning and service to others. Staff members in many different kinds of jobs make essential contributions to the work and quality of life of this community and allow us to be in operation 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year. We value and respect all of these contributions and the people who make them.
We also value and respect the concerns that have been raised by the Worker's Rights Organizing Committee, with which several of my colleagues and I met last week. In preparation for that meeting, we compiled a fact sheet on the various issues the students had raised. Anyone interested in the fact sheet can find it at www.princeton.edu/pr/reports/WROC/WROCdraft/htm.
I thought we had a very helpful and constructive discussion. Our goal is to treat all of our employees fairly: to compensate them at or above market rates; to provide competitive benefits programs; to improve working conditions whenever possible. The students identified some areas where we have not been doing as well as we should be doing. In some of those areas we have already begun to take corrective steps, and in others we are moving ahead to identify — and then take — the steps that are still necessary.
The clearest example of an area where we need to do better involves the employment of casual workers — workers who are not part of the regular University staff. Any institution of our size is likely to employ some number of casual workers to fill in for permanent employees who are off for disability or other leaves, or to work either on one-time projects or during periods of unusual needs. Our number of casual workers has grown significantly in recent years, in part because of the opening of Frist and in part because of a dramatic decline in student employment. The issues raised by the students concern not only the number of casual employees (which we agree is too high), but the policies and practices we follow with respect to casual workers, and especially our policies regarding the provision of benefits.
These are matters that we need to review. I believe that changes will need to be made. While our regular processes eventually would have identified these concerns, the students have focused our attention on these issues sooner and more clearly than might otherwise have been the case, and I am grateful for that.
In the area of outsourcing, the students have questioned a practice that we have used in only a very limited way at Princeton. There are universities that have engaged in a significant amount of outsourcing in recent years, but Princeton has not been one of them. The outsourcing students have questioned covers janitorial services at 18 off-campus buildings (mostly at Forrestal and in former commercial buildings along Alexander Street). No University employee has lost a job as a result of this outsourcing, and in fact the number of University janitorial positions has increased by a total of 15 over the last two years. We have no plans to expand the use of outsourcing beyond its current limited use.
One important question on which we have disagreed with the WROC concerns the criteria by which salary increases for staff should be determined each year. We do not believe that these increases should be made irrespective of performance (i.e., "across-the-board"). Rather, we believe that those who meet the expectations of their positions should receive more than those who do not, and that those who exceed expectations — sometimes by a substantial margin — should receive more than those who perform at a more average level. The unions that represent our workers have agreed with this approach, which is reflected in the contracts that have been negotiated in recent years between the unions and the University.
Under this approach, the University incurs an obligation to be sure that performance reviews are conducted in a fair and appropriate manner and that workers have opportunities to seek redress if they believe this has not been the case. While implementation has not been problem-free, we have been working to correct the problems and to provide appropriate training. This is an area that we will continue to monitor carefully.
I don't want to repeat everything that is covered in the fact sheet, but I do want to encourage anyone interested in these questions to read it in its entirety. Different people may come to different judgments on the various policy issues that are raised. It is entirely legitimate to ask whether Princeton ought to be paying at above-market rates, whether we offer the right combination of benefits, or whether there are other changes we ought to be making in our employment policies and practices. But it seems to me useful to begin with a common understanding of the policies, practices and collectively bargained agreements already in place, as well as the areas where we are already seeking to make improvements.
(Richard Spies is Vice President for Finance and Administration. He can be reached at d2281@princeton.edu)
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