The university’s Workers’ Rights Organizing Committee has pressured the school to raise casual workers’ salaries.
By: Jeff Milgram
Princeton University will give pay raises and benefits to "a significant number" of low-paid casual workers and has asked its Priorities Committee to look into the wage levels of all service workers.
"Over the past few months, the university has carefully considered the issues that have been raised by the Workers’ Rights Organizing Committee," Richard Spies, the university’s vice president for finance and administration, said Wednesday.
"It’s great," said David Tannenbaum, a student active in the committee. "They’re doing what looks like
a step in the right direction for casuals."
The committee made up of students, faculty, workers and several university chaplains has met with university administrators and has held several protests to put pressure on the university to change its labor policies.
"We have found that many casual workers are working full-time schedules, and some have worked here for a number of years," Mr. Spies said.
He said under the new plan, workers hired for a semester will be employed for a specific term or treated as regular employees, which would make them eligible for benefits health-care coverage, disability coverage, unemployment insurance, life insurance, pension benefits and children’s tuition assistance.
"Adhering to this policy would have the effect of converting a significant number of current casual workers to positions that use the regular salary scale and provide full benefits,’ Mr. Spies said. "In Dining Services, for example, we believe that following such a policy would reduce the number of full-time casual workers in the residential colleges and Frist (Campus Center) from its current level of 35 to much less than 10."
Mr. Tannenbaum said the change would affect less than 10 percent of the low-paid service workers. "This is just a tiny piece of the pie," Mr. Tannenbaum said.
Mr. Spies said the university will discuss the policy change with unions "as soon as possible."
"In this context, we would propose that the wage rates of casual workers should be increased to a level closer to the wage rates of regular employees," Mr. Spies said.
He said the university is asking its Priorities Committee to complete a "thorough re-examination" of its wage levels, especially for its lowest-paid workers, by the end of April.
The committee is made up of six faculty members, four undergraduates, two graduate students and three university administrators, including Provost Jeremiah Ostriker, who is chairman of the committee.
"As I have said on other occasions, staff members in many different kinds of jobs make essential contributions to the work and quality of life of this university and allow it to be in operation 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year pursuing its missions of teaching, research and service to others," Mr. Spies said. "We value and respect all of these contributions and the people who make them."