Peter Romer-Friendman
When first arriving at the University of Michigan, you probably thought that you would be attending a public university. If this is your first year at Michigan you'll soon find out why our kind administrators (CEOs, VPs, CFOs, etc) refer to this fine institution as the "Corporate University." And for those of you who are returning for another grind-it-out year you may recognize an even more devilish face lurking behind the workers who prepare the food at a dining hall near you--it's the face of privatization, food poisoning, union-busting and low wages for students and full-time workers alike. As one might expect, when students leave in May, President/CEO Bollinger and the Board of Regents tend to play their favorite game. The game is called "How to downsize jobs and destroy working families to make up for the exorbitant raises we gave ourselves this year."
The first rule of the game is that the man who nets the highest raise must cut the most jobs and hurt the most people. Gilbert S. Omenn, the Executive Vice-President for Medical Affairs who earned $540,750 in the 1999-2000 fiscal year, had the honor of being that lucky man. Omenn, the Hospital's Executive Board and the Regents decided this summer to displace 39 hard working employees at the Hospital's food services division by giving a contract to Aramark, one of the largest food service conglomerates in the world. For your own health and well-being you should know that Aramark has a history of food poisoning customers, violating U.S. labor law in disgusting ways, slashing students' and workers' wages and firing anyone for speaking up (President Bollinger usually likes free speech, why not stand up for repression once in a while). When Aramark comes to each and every dining hall next year their managers will cut wages and make sure that as few students as possible can gain work study or supplemental income from these jobs.
About 2000 campus workers belong to a union called the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). There used to be more than 2700 members of the union before the University started contracting out jobs to companies such as Aramark that do not recognize unions or respect workers' fundamental right to collectively bargain.
That brings us to the second rule of the game: violate the workers' contract you've agreed to and don't negotiate with the workers whom you're downsizing--but make sure to lie to them as a group. Omenn and certain Regents excelled this summer at this rule, mostly by lying to the workers and their union leadership about the status of Aramark and the hospital jobs. Thus, after violating the University's employment contract with AFSCME by contracting out to Aramark, the administration would not give consistent answers regarding when the decision was made to contract out or when Aramark would take over the food services in the Hospital. Thus, Aramark moved into the Hospital in early September, refusing to hire the union workers and not offering the new workers any of the benefits that are so important for workers and students without health coverage through their parents.
Now, the third rule of the game is where it gets a little tricky. Call it the "discretionary rule." Once it becomes apparent that people have been hurt, each person involved has the opportunity to stand up and admit that something went very wrong, whether or not they actually contributed to the wrongdoing themselves. Usually this is not a job for the privatization proponents who actually led the university down an immoral road, but rather a job for someone who can at least try to understand the importance of campus workers, the backbone of the University. In this year's game, Regent Larry Deitch got to play the role of the person who stands up for truth and the wronged workers of our community. At the first Board of Regents meeting this year on September 21, after hearing students, alumni, workers, union officials and faculty members denounce the University's union-busting, Deitch acknowledged the University's error and called for the termination of the Aramark contract. Perhaps this will not be Aramark U. after all.
However, this promising remark by Deitch does not mean that students, faculty and community members should not continue to organize and call for justice. We must continue to unite around issues of social and economic justice and no longer tolerate a university system that makes critical decisions about students and workers behind closed doors. Uniting students, faculty and workers in a common effort may be difficult at times, but when we do so we will always win. Every person's help and energy is crucial to create a more equitable university and world, whether we're changing the apparel industry that makes U-M clothing, the food services of the hospital or the World Trade Organization. So get involved, not just in the important service work done on and off campus, but also in the political work that will foster and hasten positive change in society.