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Following the 2008 financial downturn, fewer programs and camps will be offered at the College this summer—and, as a result, the usual demand for summer employment on campus no longer exists to its same extent, and many existing summer jobs have been cut.
In the last weeks of the academic year, five students protested this reduction of summer employment for food service staff members in particular by participating in multiple rallies, holding private meetings with President Catharine Bond Hill and, most recently, by calling a hunger strike and negotiating with senior officers. As a result of the student activism—and of discussions held by senior officers on the subject throughout the spring—Hill announced that the College has established a Hardship Fund to help employees who face a reduced income from the lack of summer employment. She also explained that the College would create a Web site devoted to disseminating information about financial decisions.
The Hardship Fund will depend on donations from members of the Vassar community to be financially effective. In an all-campus e-mail sent on June 10, President Hill urged community members considering giving to make their donations by June 15.
The protesters went through a series of actions to raise awareness of the issue throughout the last three weeks. The first two rallies were held on May 1—one at noon and another later in the afternoon. Though both included students and employees, the first was organized by leaders from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), while the second was organized by students.
In the following week, a smaller group of students met with Hill on May 5 and again on May 8 to lodge their complaints and discuss possible alternatives to employment cuts. During the second meeting, the students presented a list of demands to Hill’s office which were put together and signed by Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlán (MEChA) de Vassar College, May Day Working Group, Student Activist Union-Students for a Democratic Society (SAU-SDS), The Catalyst, Vassar Association of Class Activists (VACA), Women of Color Alliance (WOCA) and Horizontal Working Group.
In addition to summer employment and job security, the list of demands called for “respect, dignity and peace on campus for all workers” in addition to the creation of a Social Justice Committee, transparency in financial decision-making and immunity from punitive action for anyone involved in the protests.
Following the presentation of the list of demands, a family emergency called Hill away from campus for three days. During that time, students demonstrated at the Alumnae House, holding signs and handing out Mother’s Day cards with information about their cause during the Mother’s Day Brunch. Afterwards, they continued to demonstrate on the roundabout at the intersection of Raymond and College Avenues.
At the final rally—held on May 12—a large crowd of students, staff and some faculty members gathered in front of Main Building to hear speeches by students and SEIU members before marching on and off campus.
All Campus Dining Center Chef’s Helper Cathy Bradford said at the May 12 rally, “Unfortunately, it had to take a severe situation like this for us to do these demands, but this is what’s right and this is what we believe in and this is what you all students want.”
The approach of summer added urgency to the cause. “You know, in less than two weeks you all will be gone, so that’s why we’re here today,” said Bradford.
Hunger Strike
In conjunction with the rally, a hunger strike began on the morning of May 12. Five students participated in the strike, which continued until the late afternoon on May 15, when the students and administrators reached a formal agreement. Hill sent an all-campus e-mail on May 16 that detailed the agreements the group had reached.
While students protesting at the rally used speeches and rhetoric to draw attention to the issues, the hunger strikers and other student negotiators held a press conference to fully explain their positions as well the progress and compromises that had been made. They explained that five of them chose to do a hunger strike because of the powerful message that it would send. “The reason we chose to do a hunger strike is that we felt that it was very symbolic, especially since we were informed by who had not received employment they had expected that they might not be able to feed their children,” said Anastasia Hardin ’10.
Velarde added, “The hunger strike was not only a symbolic commitment, but a material commitment on our part because we understood and we continue to understand the urgency of this issue because summer is quickly approaching us.”
Administrators, however, were uneasy about the strike because they felt that such an extreme form of protest was uncalled for. “Some students also described it as a response to resistance from the administration to engaging in dialogue with them; we do not feel that there were grounds for the strike to the degree that it was motivated by this perceived resistance,” the administrators wrote in the e-mailed statement. “The hunger strike added urgency to the discussions because we were very away of the strain that the students had put on themselves under, and we were concerned for their health.”
Kitzinger further explained, “Before [Hill] left, the last thing she had said to them was that we should continue to talk, so as far as the feedback they had gotten from her, there was no resistance to discussion.” According to administrators, Hill’s brief absence was the only delay in the series of discussions.
With decreased programming, less demand for summer employment
Though the loss of summer employment and the protests in May would seem to put employees in imminent danger, the issue stems from late March when available summer jobs were posted. The nearness to summer likely made finding other seasonal employment difficult, a chief concern for involved students and staff. However, according to Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs Rachel Kitzinger, “the amount of summer employment is directly dependent on the number of programs that come to the campus and those plans aren’t finalized before about March.”
While union members have negotiated contracts that preserve their jobs from school year to school year, the College is also usually able to offer summer employment for dining staff because of the summer programs that come to campus and the projects that Buildings and Grounds takes on over the summer. Many employees have come to expect and rely on this seasonal employment. Summer employment begins on July 1, so the urgency of the protests came as much from the students’ schedules as the approach of a season of unemployment.
This year, summertime use of the campus has dramatically decreased due to the tumultuous financial climate. As reported in a 4.29.09 article in The Miscellany News (“Financial crisis forces reduction in SEIU summer employment”), the number and scope of programs is much more limited, Buildings and Grounds is taking on fewer projects and several buildings will be offline that were not in previous years. The Estee Lauder Group has scaled back its programming this summer, and the Empire Games canceled its commitment to Vassar.
Though the students were chiefly concerned with the immediate issue of summer employment, they did address future staffing reductions. “We want job security in the future because we spoke with [Hill] this week, and she told us that we shouldn’t be worried about summer because next semester the summer will look like peanuts, and so that really worries us,” said Royce Drake ’10 at the rally on May 12.
In an e-mailed statement Hill, Kitzinger, Dean of the College Christopher Roellke, Vice President for Finance and Administration Elizabeth Eismeier and Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette also explained that staffing decisions for the 2009/2010 school year were made in the fall of 2008, at which time faculty members whose contracts were not being renewed were made aware of the fact. “Only a few other continuing employees have actually been laid off for 09/10, and notice was provided as early as possible, ranging from three to eight months in advance,” they wrote.
During the rallies, a common cry was “Cappy needs a pay cut,” and at the last rally, information sheets about Hill’s and other senior officers’ incomes were passed out to the crowd along with the List of Demands. A decision, however, on this issue had already been made earlier in the year independent of the protests—for the 2009-10 year, all administrator making more $50,000 per year are subject to a pay freeze.
At the press conference held by student protesters on May 15—just before agreements were finalized—the students explained that they had hoped for pay cuts for all administrators in the top 20 percent earning bracket. As stated in their list of demands, “Vassar’s first commitment should be to those in the most precarious economic situation, not to those at the top of the economic ladder. The economic strategy should include that those who are in the top 20 percent of the Vassar pay bracket have their wages adjusted accordingly before any job cuts are made.”
Hardship Fund
Though the demands were not met specifically, the negotiations did yield what will hopefully be significant results for the workers who did not receive the summer employment they expected. While the jobs cannot be brought back, the Hardship Fund has been created specifically to help meet the needs of employees who will experience a significant reduction in income due to the lack of summer employment. Employees will be able to apply to the fund beginning in late June so that the money will cover the same time as the seasonal employment, which begins on July 1. President Hill urged the community to make donations to the fund by June 15 so that it might meet these goals.
Money will be allocated based on demonstrated need by a committee created specifically for the purpose of administrating this fund. According to the Hardship Fund Web site, "The fund will be available for the remainder of 2009 to employees whose 2008 Vassar gross income falls below $40,000, who have lost income, and who have needs they cannot meet." Employees will show need in a written application that demonstrates they have experienced a significant reduction of income with the result that they cannot meet the basic needs of their family—though they can also apply for the fund by personally meeting with the committee.
The committee includes Royce Drake '10, Professor of History Rebecca Edwards, Assistant Director of Human Resources Tanhena Pacheco Dunn, Director of Religious and Spiritual Life Sam Speers, and Maureen Lashlee from the Community Action Partnership.
“This is someone who does this kind of work and has a very good sense of how to provide for what people need and what the other resources are that are available in the area in case people come with needs that can be addressed in multiple ways,” said Kitzinger of Lashlee, “so she’s going to be a very good resource for this group to be sure that people are using all the resources that are available to them, not only to Vassar but in the community.”
The Hardship Fund will be entirely supported by voluntary donations. Senior officers explained that, while the College is supporting the organization of the fund, it does not have the resources to support it financially. The goal, Kitzinger explained, is to raise between $100,000 and $150, 000 in order to meet the anticipated need of employees. All participants in the negotiations committed to donating to the fund, and they are also encouraging all members of the Vassar community to make donations.
According to Robyn Smigel ’12, one of the hunger strikers, “This is an opportunity for people to voluntarily take a pay cut to contribute to this fund, so we have no mandatory pay cut set up, but this is in essence the same thing.”
Dialogue continues through Web, open forums
Beyond the strike, the negotiations brought the manner of discussions between students and administrators into question. In addition to the Hardship Fund, the agreements also stipulated the creation of a new Web site that will hold financial information specifically and the initiation of regular forums next year that will host discussions specifically related to issues of social justice. Forums about the state of the College’s finances have already taken place this year and have had mixed attendance rates, though none were ever devoted solely to social justice issues.
According to Kitzinger, the administration is committed to leaving lines of communication open. “What is uncertain is how to do it in an effective way,” she said. “People have many things they’re doing, but if you don’t catch people at the right time, those very people may later on feel as if they weren’t communicated with.”
“We’ve agreed to continue our conversations next semester, but the urgency that we were feeling [is for] summer employment, and it’s coming up very quickly, and people were facing very real financial difficulties,” said Smigel.
Although the strike was controversial, several staff members came by the hall where the strikers sat to express support and to talk with the students waiting. Several faculty also drafted a letter of support, which was signed by 46 faculty members before being sent to Hill. “Though we understand that ‘demanding’ solutions can halt productive discourse, we also understand that our students are working through their ideas of justice, citizenship and institutional responsibility,” they wrote in the letter. “We ask that you engage with these students with an open mind and generous spirit.”
“We have received a lot of encouragement,” said one of the strikers, Mikey Velarde ’09. “I think this in some ways helps to stimulate a sort of movement on behalf of faculty; it recognizes how they are, too, implicated in the financial ongoing of this college.”
The series of rallies and meetings raised awareness of both the immediate trouble that some dining staff employees face, but also the flaws in campus dialogue that will take effort from all constituencies to overcome and be increasingly important in the future.
Protesters called for a Social Justice Committee that would actively develop College policy and include students, faculty, staff and administrators interested in social justice issues. Although union members cannot legally sit on a College committee, the forums, if well-attended, may be the solution. The informality and separation of open forums from the governance will allow workers to voice their opinions without being hindered by a conflict of interests between SEIU and the College.
“What I hope is that we can over time establish some feeling or assumption of good faith among all the constituencies, and I think that was one of the things that troubled me about the hunger strike that the move to that form of protest, when there, from our perspective, hadn’t been any resistance to dialogue, looked to me like a real assumption of the administration’s bad faith, which I just don’t believe there is,” said Kitzinger. “That, I think, is the most troubling in all of this is that people leap to conclusions, that don’t assume that everyone is acting with as much integrity and good faith as they can, and I don’t know how to cure the community of that.”
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