WROC survey finds bias in staff payment

While most University workers feel appreciated by the general campus community, many workers also report difficulty making ends meet, according to a survey conducted by the Workers' Rights Organizing Committee in April and presented at Monday afternoon's meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community.

In addition, the survey suggests there are problems with the University's "pay-for-performance" system, whereby supervisors give employees performance scores which determine their wage increases for the following year.

According to the WROC report, 45 percent of respondents think that their last PFP score was not fair and 33 percent believed friendliness with the managers influences their score.

The 92-question survey, conducted with the assistance of psychology professor Eldar Shafir and the Princeton Survey Research Center, was filled out by 425 of the 600 University workers who are members of the Service Employees International Union or the Princeton University Library Assistants union.

The survey indicated that overall job satisfaction is high but that there are some continuing problems.

"Many too many workers report that they are having difficulty making ends meet," said Gillian White GS of the WROC. Thirty percent of workers have at least one other job, and 23 percent have had their basic services disconnected because they could not pay their bills.

WROC's report notes that many workers do not feel that their hard work is rewarded or that they could be promoted. Notably, 69 percent of respondents "disagree" or "strongly disagree" with the statement, "The harder I work, the more I am rewarded."

In the question-and-answer period after the presentation, library assistant Samira Sisson spoke out against the PFP system.

"When you have so many supervisors and so little staff," she said, "it's really a very unfair system to have at the library or I think anywhere else on campus."

The WROC recommended that the University introduce a system of wage raises based on cost-of-living adjustment and noted that 74 percent of survey respondents favored this idea.

The report also recommends that the University abolish the PFP system in some departments.

Daniel Scheiner, acting vice president for human resources, said in an interview that each union representing campus workers has negotiated a slightly different PFP program.

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Senior Vice President for Administration Charles Kalmbach '68 said rewards for performance conform to the University's overall goals for compensation.

"The basic principle of our compensation is that people should be rewarded based on their contribution to the University," he said.

Tommy Parker, president of SEIU Local 175, said that the survey results show that "the fact is that you do have . . . folks working here who are still struggling."

The survey also suggested that some workers were unsure about job security and that some departments lack gender and racial diversity in their employees.

After Monday's meeting, White said the committee hopes to meet with President Tilghman and Kalmbach about the results of the survey, especially regarding PFP.

The survey suggested that there are continuing problems regarding job security. "21% of all workers didn't believe their jobs were secure while they were on sick leave," said Sarah Rivlin '03 of the WROC. The survey also showed that some departments lack gender or racial diversity in their employees, she added.

Kalmbach said that the WROC survey says some positive things about the way that University workers connect with the community and added that the administration will continue to work hard to make this a "great place to work" for all its employees.

The results demonstrated that "most Princeton workers feel appreciated by the rest of the University community," said graduate student May Mergenthaler, a member of the WROC.

The report suggests that the University increase opportunities for promotion and address the lack of racial and gender diversity in some departments by increasing opportunities for training and promotion.

At Monday's meeting, Provost Amy Gutmann said that the PFP system has not been in place long enough to make any significant judgments on its success.

If the University continues to use the PFP system, which has been in place for SEIU members for two full years, "it has to be administered correctly and dealt with fairly," he added.

The WROC is a student organization founded in the fall of 2000 with the goal of working to improve conditions for the University's lower-paid staff members. Last year, the efforts of the WROC helped lead the university to make some changes, including raising the minimum hourly wage for biweekly staff members to $11, raising their wages to 101% of market rates and reducing hiring of temporary workers. The estimated cost of these wage improvements, which were to be implemented over several years, was $1.5 million.

"WROC intends to continue being a pressure group on campus that will not let the adminstration go back on any of the concessions they have made already," May Mergenthaler GS said in an e-mail.