Anonymous Contributing Writer
Thank you for your support. I know there are a number of employees that have gotten their hopes up that the statement against outsourcing written by Laura Burch and other faculty will somehow end the outsourcing. But others are saying that the statement came too late. For me, the statement gave hope, but also saddened me at the realization that the administration has really done dining and custodial services wrong. I didn’t realize the extent of the injustice until faculty explained that there was no good reason behind the outsourcing, and about the lack of transparency, disrespect for what we have already endured through the pandemic, lack of guarantees and the unethical judgment for a just society.
Most of us live paycheck to paycheck, and now with soaring inflation, any loss is a big loss. I wish to retain the same amount of vacation and sick time that I currently have. I have 33 weeks combined. Creative Dining will only allow 4 weeks of Paid Time Off at the highest seniority. This is a huge discrepancy for what we can currently earn. The College said that they would pay us 10% of our sick time out and that Creative Dining would roll over the rest for two years then we would lose it. It is unlikely that I can use 960 hours off sick time in two years. I earned this time by coming to work everyday and not calling off in years. Those who continually called off got paid. This seems unfair. The scariest thing that Creative Dining mentioned in their meeting with us, is that they do lay-offs during slow times (breaks) and they said that we could use unemployment. I have never been on unemployment and do not intend to be. Why would the College want to create an extra burden on society by promoting staff to seek unemployment? Currently we are always allowed to get forty hours a week even during college breaks. I don’t believe a for-profit company will guarantee this. Also for those of us with a lot of years at the College of Wooster, our retirement is matched at 12%. With Creative Dining we will have to start over at a much lower percentage. No matter what angle you look at the facts, it seems like we are being punished for our hard work and years of dedication to the College of Wooster.
