Jekyll2023-10-20T17:52:05+00:00http://princeton.dsanj.org/feed.xmlPrinceton YDSAHomepage for the Princeton Young Democratic Socialists of Americamani_d2The invisible and ignored struggles of Princeton’s service workers2023-04-27T00:00:00+00:002023-04-27T00:00:00+00:00http://princeton.dsanj.org/princeton-service-workers<p><i>Published in</i> <a href="https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2023/04/princeton-workers-pay-conditions-cost-of-living-wages">The Daily Princetonian</a><i>.</i></p>
<p>The following testimonial comes directly from a service worker at Princeton University, presenting an authentic sentiment of inadequate financial support and an uncaring institution; it is just one of many voices of frustration and despair on this campus. It has only been edited for clarity:</p>
<p>“My salary is not enough for a single father with two kids. I can not afford to [pay for] rent and utilities, [not to mention] car fuel and maintenance… I literally have to choose if I’m going to have breakfast or lunch most days ’cause the price of food is high and I can’t afford to eat both meals most days… I’m asked by office staff if I have plans for a summer vacation; I can’t even treat myself to McDonald’s, so a vacation is just a dream. The small 2% or 3% raises we get are always erased [by] the annual 3% raise we pay for health insurance. I have been working for Princeton for a little over 3 years, and my salary has gone up by less than 800 dollars for the year… I left a job that paid me significantly more, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to work for what I thought at the time was a world-class university. I have come to realize that it’s smoke and mirrors and Princeton wants to pay us middle to low-end of the scale and expect to be talked about in the same breath as Harvard, [but] Harvard facilities operations [get] paid higher [than] we do here. So maybe Princeton should lower their view of [themselves] until they truly start acting like the prestigious university that they are.”</p>
<p>Our service workers are vital to the University community, yet paradoxically exist in a space disparate from it: a space in which their concerns and fears aren’t important enough for the University to accommodate them. While the University offers legitimately helpful <a href="https://hr.princeton.edu/thrive/health">benefits</a> including healthcare, childcare, and retirement funds, which are genuinely appreciated by workers, a survey of over 100 union workers on campus – conducted by Princeton YDSA – tells us that they are simply not enough. Instead, the ostensibly meaningful benefits mask the impacts of low wages on those that need to pay for rent, a car, or even just food for their kids.</p>
<p>While the University helps faculty and students thrive, workers are left to the wayside – as one campus worker described, the administration “doesn’t really care what we are facing on [a] daily basis.” Princeton should no longer brush these issues aside. It must take these concerns seriously and commit to supporting its service workers with meaningful compensation.</p>
<p>While the <a href="https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/">cost of living has increased month over month all across America for the past two years</a>, many Americans have felt left behind by the corporations that employ them. These employers have offered meager raises to pacify their workers while annual costs of living have skyrocketed by <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/inflation-impact-states-map-135604875.html">8 percent and even 12 percent in some states</a>, and many corporations are raking in record profits in an economy that is failing to support its essential workers.</p>
<p>Princeton, disappointingly, is following these trends. According to the survey, despite requests from workers to be fairly compensated under the cost of living increases in New Jersey (<a href="https://www.jec.senate.gov/cards/nj/">which stand around 8 percent</a>, Princeton acts as if circumstances have not changed, offering minimum pay increases below inflation and the cost of their benefits to unionized workers. In other words, our employees are effectively seeing their wages decline.</p>
<p>In the survey, workers detailed the extent of the deep financial issues they face which Princeton must make an effort to remedy. Many of the responses mentioned general cost of living hardships in New Jersey and Princeton saying, “fuel cost + mortgage / rent is unattainable for my union brothers / sisters,” “I have problems paying my bills and paying for food,” and “I can’t afford anything but the bare minimum.” Cost of living increases along with Princeton’s disgracefully low wages have created unacceptable conditions for many of our most valuable and essential workers. However, beyond these already appalling day-to-day living situations, some workers described absolutely devastating stories due to the lack of financial support from Princeton. Among the most heartbreaking comes from a worker who was forced to sell his home to afford rising expenses: “[I had] to sell my home. Everything is so expensive for everyone; a big increase should [have] happened long ago for us [essential] workers.”</p>
<p>The lack of essential cost-of-living adjustments is made more devastating by the cost of Princeton’s healthcare benefits. Despite receiving praise from many workers in the survey, many also criticized the fact that unionized employees’ negotiated annual raises (around 3 percent) are almost entirely negated by the rise in healthcare costs each year (also around 3 percent) — even before inflation. Princeton’s pay stagnation shows a blatant disregard for the deplorable conditions that their essential workers live in — conditions that are in direct contrast to Princeton’s status as the wealthiest per-capita university in the U.S.</p>
<p>Princeton must give its workers automatic, meaningful increases in wages that account for changes in the cost of living. Responding to our survey, 105 out of 116 workers said that they would “support automatic cost of living adjustments” as a baseline policy. In responses that provided more detail, many mentioned a desire for financial security and fair compensation. “Our current raises hardly even keep up with yearly increases in health care let alone everyday cost of living increases,” noted one worker. Another asserted: “We all deserve more than just a cost of living raise.” Yet given Vice President of Human Resources Romy Riddick’s claim that Princeton is “paying very close attention to the salaries and making market adjustments,” it is evident that Princeton only cares about the market viability of its wages, not the needs of its workers.</p>
<p>Given Princeton’s current indifference to these conditions, students must play an active role in pressuring the University to make real changes — most importantly, annual wage increases across the board for its workers to combat the rising cost of living. Students’ voices can genuinely influence the actions of the administration. Look to the incredible efforts of Divest Princeton, for instance, and their resilient campaign that resulted in <a href="https://www.divestprinceton.com/the-process"> the University divesting its endowment from publicly traded fossil fuel companies</a>
Their work is far from over, however, and so is ours. We encourage students to advocate on behalf of workers who have found their struggles invisible to and ignored by Princeton. Join us in our fight against the University’s negligence for our most essential workers to live a life free from immense and unnecessary turmoil and hardship.</p>
<p>To help us advocate for this vital change, we encourage you to sign on to <a href="https://forms.gle/6JUZsDhhZ3W9yiBA9">student groups’ petition</a> for the University to address campus workers’ needs. Also, please join us on May 1st as part of the Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA) <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CqLzkckvtRl/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link">May Day March</a> for International Workers Day as we amplify workers’ grievances. The march begins at 112 Witherspoon Street on May 1 at 6:00pm and will feature speakers from YDSA, ULA, and other groups advocating for workers’ rights and empowerment.</p>
<p>Additionally, fighting on the side of Princeton’s campus workers in their attempt to receive fair and livable compensation is their local union, <a href="https://www.local175.net/">Local 175 of Service Workers International Union (SEIU)</a>. Made up of our indispensable workers (staff from dining halls, cleaning, maintenance, etc.), SEIU 175 is urging the University to better pay its workers. However, effectively utilizing the union to advocate on behalf of workers turns out to be quite difficult at Princeton, given their “no-strike” clause in the negotiated contract, as Bryce Springfield ’25 and Lucy Armengol ’26 argue in another <a href="https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/b8d8db7c-13bb-4e2f-8615-9147f8447b5c">piece</a>.</p>
<p><i>David Beeson ’26 and Abdul-Bassit Fijabi ’24 are members of Young Democratic Socialists of America at Princeton. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of SEIU 175. This article was written alongside <a href="https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/b8d8db7c-13bb-4e2f-8615-9147f8447b5c">another</a> in a series on campus labor.</i></p>mani_d2Published in The Daily Princetonian.By restricting strikes, Princeton silences workers’ free speech2023-04-27T00:00:00+00:002023-04-27T00:00:00+00:00http://princeton.dsanj.org/right-to-strike<p><i>Published in</i> <a href="https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2023/04/princeton-workers-union-local-175-free-speech-silenced">The Daily Princetonian</a><i>.</i></p>
<p>Free speech is <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/meet-princeton/academic-freedom-and-free-expression">understood</a> to be a central tenet of academic life at Princeton. Members of the University across the political spectrum have considered how free speech can and should be upheld on campus while maintaining a safe environment. But these conversations have failed to include an essential part of our campus community: workers. Until the University removes the ban on worker strikes, its commitment to free speech will remain hollow.</p>
<p>Members of the <a href="https://www.local175.net/">Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Local 175</a> (a union on campus that includes dining hall, custodial, and landscaping staff, among others) are unable to fully access their right to free speech. Workplace discussions about organizing are limited, and their freedom of expression is sharply restricted as well. Article 35 of their <a href="https://www.local175.net/_files/ugd/0daac9_c9261e83eba44920b378beb1a37335ff.pdf">contract</a> with the University prohibits the Union and employees from participating in “any strike, sympathy strike, work stoppage, concentrated slowdown, refusal to cross any picket line or interrupt work in any other way.”</p>
<p>Article 35 is justified under the University’s <a href="https://rrr.princeton.edu/2022/university-wide-regulations/11-university-principles-general-conduct-and-regulations">Statement on Freedom of Expression</a>, which protects free speech unless it is “directly incompatible with the functioning of the University.” The University’s statement claims this is a “narrow exception to the general principle of freedom of expression.” However, strikes are one of the most meaningful and impactful practices of free speech.</p>
<p>Free speech has played a vital role in unionization and workers’ rights movements. In the early 20th century, the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goldman-free-speech-progressive-era-1907-1916/">Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)</a>, an organization that advocated for workplace democracy through general and industrial unionism, engaged in a series of “<a href="https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/industrial-workers-world-campaigns-free-speech-spokane-washington-usa-1908-1910">free speech fights</a>.” Members of the IWW spoke out and organized strikes across the United States, often resulting in their arrest. Many organizers refused to be released from prison and demanded a trial as a platform to advocate for both free speech and the right to strike and unionize.</p>
<p>Working conditions improved during the Progressive Era as the federal government was forced to make concessions to labor organizations in the face of strikes and other forms of union activism. For example, in the <a href="https://www.massmoments.org/moment-details/bread-and-roses-strike-begins.html">Bread and Roses</a> Strike of 1912, mill workers who were predominantly immigrant women went on strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, after their wages were decreased. <a href="https://nysaflcio.org/history-union-movement">23,000 workers</a> went on strike and almost 20,000 were on the picket line. Ultimately, the Bread and Roses Strike increased not only their own wages, but the wages of textile workers across New England.</p>
<p>Labor activism has played a critical role in achieving many of the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa">labor protections</a> which we take for granted, including weekends, overtime pay, and the elimination of child labor. Without the ability to strike, SEIU Local 175 is significantly disempowered in their contract negotiations with the University.</p>
<p>To investigate the state of worker satisfaction on campus, the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) at Princeton surveyed 116 union service workers during the Spring 2023 semester. On one hand, the survey found that most workers seemed grateful that the University offered relatively good non-wage benefits. However, as expressed by Abdul-Bassit Fijabi ‘24 and David Beeson ‘26 in <a href="https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2c6adf81-3dc7-4e73-86a3-8f8f325554d7">a separate piece</a>, surveyed workers have consistently expressed concerns; for example, some noted that they are woefully underpaid – especially in a time of high inflation – as staffing shortages and a sense of alienation plague many union shops on campus.</p>
<p>SEIU Local 175, which employs over 700 employees at Princeton University, makes active efforts to improve working conditions and wages for unionized workers. As one worker expressed, the union “[f]ights for all employees and has… sav[ed] employees’ jobs”; and as another notes, the union has “done well with getting us increased raise amounts over the past couple years.”</p>
<p>Yet, these aims are severely limited by the imbalance of power in the contract negotiations between the University and the Union, particularly when the University bans free expression in the form of a strike.</p>
<p>In the United States overall, unions <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/union-decline-lowers-wages-of-nonunion-workers-the-overlooked-reason-why-wages-are-stuck-and-inequality-is-growing/">consistently demonstrate</a> strong benefits for workers, including <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/union-decline-lowers-wages-of-nonunion-workers-the-overlooked-reason-why-wages-are-stuck-and-inequality-is-growing/">up to a 20 percent income premium</a> compared to similar non-union workers. Unions, moreover, demonstrate comparable lifetime earnings gains to those of a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00197939221129261">college degree</a> despite earlier retirement, with a major part of the causal mechanism being the strike. As demonstrated by economist David Card, strikes in the US have historically had significantly <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2937893">positive effects</a> on unionized workers’ wages, and such strikes were deeply intertwined with empowered labor unions.</p>
<p>Within the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/23/us/university-california-workers-strike.html">University of California</a> system, this freedom of expression enabled educators to gain substantial improvements to students’ education quality and their workplace conditions, with 48 percent higher minimum wages for teaching assistants and 61 percent for graduate students. In 2022, even the mere threat of a strike among Kaiser Permanente nurses resulted in <a href="https://medcitynews.com/2022/11/kaiser-nurses-avert-strike-and-get-22-5-raise-with-new-contract/">major improvements</a> for both workers and patients, with 22.5 percent higher pay and improved staffing to provide improved patient care. More recently, though the fight continues, the Rutgers strike enabled faculty and graduate students to make <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/15/rutgers-unions-deal-end-strike-00092201">strong gains</a>, including 14 to 44 percent higher wages, after the Rutgers University administration simply refused to make reasonable concessions for its employees to see decent compensation for their contributions, by extension ensuring that educators can better serve their mentees.</p>
<p>With the no-strike clause in Article 35, SEIU Local 175 and the workers it represents have less power in their negotiations with the University, as they lack one of the most “powerful tool[s] for any union [to] express its voice,” as put by an anonymous employee. If the University disagrees with a demand, the union cannot effectively use its leverage to encourage the University to listen to workers.</p>
<p>This unconscionable restriction sharply contradicts the University’s <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/meet-princeton/academic-freedom-and-free-expression">romanticized rhetoric</a> about its free speech policies, preventing workers from freely expressing themselves. Free speech is an essential value that must be accessible to everyone, including workers and including for expression that challenges Princeton University, if it is to truly value free expression. Even some past Supreme Court rulings have protected the right to strike on the grounds of protecting workers’ freedom of expression, such as <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/310/88#310_US_88n2">Thornhill v. Alabama</a> (1940) and <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/370/9/">NLRB v. Washington Aluminum Co.</a> (1962).</p>
<p>Although workers are severely limited in the extent of free expression permitted by the University, students do have the ability to platform the unheard grievances of workers. By acting in solidarity with the employees who sustain our education and living as students, we can show that students will not accept the University’s neglect and disrespect of workers’ needs and free speech principles.</p>
<p>We encourage you to sign on to <a href="https://forms.gle/6JUZsDhhZ3W9yiBA9">student groups’ petition</a> for the University to address campus workers’ needs. Additionally, please join YDSA on May 1st to amplify workers’ grievances as a part of Unidad Latina en Acción’s <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CqLzkckvtRl/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link">May Day Rally</a>, starting at 112 Witherspoon St on May 1 at 6:00 pm.</p>
<p><i>Lucía Armengol ‘26 and Bryce Springfield ‘25 are members of Young Democratic Socialists of America at Princeton. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of SEIU 175. This article was written alongside <a href="https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2c6adf81-3dc7-4e73-86a3-8f8f325554d7">another</a> in a series on campus labor.</i></p>mani_d2Published in The Daily Princetonian.