Terrace joins Cloister and Tower in offering staff health insurance

Correction appended

Terrace Club began offering health insurance coverage plans to its entire staff last October, joining Cloister Inn and Tower Club in providing workers with comprehensive medical coverage, Terrace Club Board of Governors Secretary Sandy Harrison ’74 said.

Terrace’s chef, sous chef and other full-time employees have received regular medical coverage in the past, but this is the first year that those benefits will be extended to include the eight kitchen and maintenance staff workers who are paid hourly wages, Harrison said.

Terrace provides a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) with a $5,000 out-of-pocket maximum, Harrison explained. HDHPs are typically characterized by lower premium payments and higher deductibles than those of traditional health plans. The Terrace health plan mandates that the club workers are responsible for paying up to the first $5,000 of the cost of any medical treatment, with the insurance company contributing the rest. Under the current agreement, Terrace will cover the full amount of the premium payments for the new insurance policy.

The benefits are significant for the kitchen workers who “live paycheck to paycheck,” Harrison said, adding that if a worker had gotten seriously ill before the policy change, he or she could possibly be “ruined financially.”

Paying for the premiums of the eight additional workers will cost the club $15,000 per year, Harrison said, adding that student membership dues were increased by $75 this year to help cover the additional expense.

“We raised our rate a little bit more than we would otherwise have to do this, but we’re still comfortably below the other clubs’ [dues],” Harrison said, noting that he does not believe the increased costs will have a significant impact on student members.

Though the policy change was not legally mandated, Harrison said he felt a moral and ethical obligation to provide the club’s entire staff with health insurance. “Health care should be a right, not a privilege,” he said.

Terrace staff members are “really happy” about the health care policy change, Terrace sous chef Gladys Marin said. The 20-year veteran of the Terrace kitchen added that she believes employees “deserve” health insurance for keeping the club clean and Princeton students well fed. People just “work better” when they know the club is “thinking about its employees,” she explained.

The initiative to expand coverage at Terrace was begun by David Willard ’60, chairman of the Terrace board, who said he first raised the issue at a board meeting. “They should have [health insurance] just like anybody else,” Willard said of the club’s kitchen staff. “We were talking about costs and I said, ‘How about the kitchen help?’ because you know they got little kids … I don’t see how [they] can get by with the kids.”

With its policy change, Terrace joins several other eating clubs that provide health care benefits for all their staff workers.

“All the clubs are making an effort to cover their staff,” Cloister facilities manager Alan Aptner explained, adding that Cloister has been providing health insurance to all workers at the club for “many, many years.”

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Tower also offers all staffers health coverage, Greg Berzolla ’87, the club's Graduate Board chair, said in an e-mail.

“As far as I understand we have offered health insurance to our [kitchen and club] staff with a sharing of the premium cost,” Berzolla said. He added that he believed the current health insurance policy has been in place since at least the ’80s.

Health plans for Colonial Club staff differ according to position. The club’s executive chef, for example, has family-plan health coverage, but both the assistant chef and the club manager have single plans, Colonial Graduate Board chair Llewellyn Ross ’58 said, adding that the hourly wage staff “opted out” of health coverage. He explained that for the past eight years half the cost of the premium payments mandated by the policies have been paid by the club.

Other clubs were less forthcoming with the specifics of their staff’s health care coverage.

“We have a significant budget for health insurance for our staff,” Cap & Gown Club Graduate Board chair George McCarter ’71 said, noting that the club “generally” provided health benefits for its workers. McCarter was unable to confirm, however, whether all of Cap’s staff was given health insurance coverage.

Ivy Club Graduate Board chairman James Griffin ’55 declined to comment on any policy regarding worker compensation at the club out of respect for employees’ privacy. The chairs of the graduate boards of Charter Club, Cottage Club, Quadrangle Club and Tiger Inn did not respond to requests for comment.

Correction

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the premium payments for the eight additional workers will cost Terrace $50,000 per year. In fact, they will cost the club $15,000.