The recently formed Workers' Rights Organizing Committee (WROC) has effectively divided students into two groups: those that 'support Princeton's workers' and those that are 'anti-workers' rights.' Such a black-and-white depiction of this particularly complex issue is disturbing — for its neglect of a wide range of people standing on common ground, and for its tendency to shun skepticism, however reasonable, from members of the University community.
This supposed dichotomy of the issue is particularly unwarranted, in fact, because WROC has failed to provide critical pieces of information that students need before they can assess the movement.
My first question: what exactly are the wages and benefits entailed in employment at Princeton? Not a single flier, memo or poster distributed by WROC responds to this basic question — and for good reason. Frankly, wages are surprisingly high. The minimum hourly wages for janitors, cashiers and dining hall cooks are $11.72/hr., $12.18/hr. and $13.81/hr., respectively, figures one would never hazard to guess based on WROC materials. These wages result in a standard salary of $25,000-$30,000 per year, numbers above the national average and considerably higher than the incomes of most post-doctoral students and civil servants.
What's more, the unique benefits accompanying employment as a services worker at Princeton are not only 'competitive' but are essentially unrivaled in the private sector. The pension plans established for lower-level employees, for instance, are precisely the same plans given to the most prominent faculty members. Aside from workers' regular wages, the University contributes an additional 9.3 percent of a worker's salary to a 401K; this can increase to 15 percent for senior workers. Compare this to the private sector, where most companies make no contributions beyond an employee's salary. Further, upon working for five years at the University, all employees receive tuition reductions for their children amounting to $9,000 per child per year (or half the tuition, depending on circumstances), credits that can be applied to any 2-year or 4-year institution in the nation. Again, something not found in the private sector.
More than anything, framing the current dialogue in the jargon of rights and moral duties is suspect. To have any meaning, the phrase "workers' rights" must connote certain entitlements owed specifically to workers. Beyond traditional rights granted to all American residents, the right to collectively bargain is codified in U.S. law as unique to workers. Minimum wage statutes aside, however, the essential "right" to an above-market wage is guaranteed nowhere, nor should it be.
No meaningful notion of rights would fully concede that the manner in which one exercises a right is directly related to that right's existence. Speech is not prohibited for its content, nor is religious expression limited to its popular appeal. The alleged right to collect high wages, in contrast, must be heavily dependent on the quality of work performed. Its existence is at best conditional. Not surprisingly, then, WROC's platform takes the first steps toward eroding this sensible link between performance and pay, contending that the "vitality" of low-wage workers should not be vulnerable to subjective evaluations.
Although framing the issue in terms of workers' "rights" is questionable, there is little doubt that the WROC has performed admirably in certain areas. Its members have heightened awareness about the rising number of casual workers, a problem already acknowledged by administrators, in addition to establishing a broader dialogue on the underlying formula by which the University ought to determine workers' wages. To that end, WROC's tendency to feature economics professor Elizabeth Bogan as a faculty affiliate of the organization has been highly effective.
Defying the customary disconnection between economists and activists, Bogan has bolstered the ideological bases for parts of WROC's platform through her focus on the efficiency wage model, the notion that wages should broadly correlate to their propensity to increase worker productivity. Though an overall supporter of WROC's purpose, when asked if this model is consistent with WROC's proposal to downplay performance evaluations. Bogan acknowledged that she was not completely comfortable with "every aspect" of the organization's platform.
Bogan also suggests that workers at colleges deserve a "premium" for the extra grunt work involved in cleaning up after rowdy, drunken students. Another reasonable point, but one largely irrelevant for workers making $12 to $15 per hour with an elaborate benefits package unmatched elsewhere in the market. The premium already exists.
Absent from this continuing debate over wages is a sound description of the University's institutional role in the community and the world beyond. At its core, Princeton is fundamentally an educational institution, not one dedicated to charity or income redistribution. As a consequence, its foremost objective is to provide the best possible liberal arts education for its students. If Princeton's mission were equal parts educational and altruistic, the extra money supposedly floating around campus would be better spent on exclusively charitable causes. One gets the distinct impression that quake victims in India need assistance far more than American workers receiving decent wages and nearly unrivaled benefit plans.
The workers' rights dialogue has certainly galvanized the campus' more activist elements and provoked some rather interesting, if extreme, reactions. Wilson College Master Miguel Centeno has publicly stated that the situation may "require sacrifices" — including increased tuition and decreased faculty pay — in order to properly compensate Princeton's workers. One WROC flier even goes so far as to draw a parallel between current conditions and the presence of slaves on campus during the antebellum period.
Meanwhile, in the real world, hundreds of thousands of hard-working employees across the nation at large firms and dot-com startups alike are being laid off en masse as corporate America strives to cut costs. Against this backdrop of widespread unemployment, we hear shouts about inhumane conditions for employees already receiving above-market wages. We are reminded of the insular bubble in which we so comfortably live.
There are three sides to every story — and then there is the truth. The ongoing one-sided dialogue about Princeton's wage policies needs a more balanced evaluation of the evidence from members of the community, particularly its students. Brad Simmons is from San Jose, California. He can be reached at bmsimmon@princeton.edu.
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