By Parisa Burton
Opinions Editor
The College announced in an email on Nov. 20 that it will privatize the rest of its custodial services through ABM Industries, which currently serves about half of the residential and academic buildings on campus. The remaining building service operations are currently fulfilled by two unions: CWA and IFPTE.
The implementation has an anticipated completion of March 31, 2025. Current janitorial and moving team members will have the opportunity to apply for ABM positions, represented by the Services Employees International Union.
According to Vice President for Operations Sharon Blanton in a campus outreach email, The College expects significant savings of $8 million in the first five years of the contract, working towards their goal of cutting its operations budget by $20 million.
“An $8 million dollar savings in five or eight years is a drop in the bucket,” said Linda Gagnon, an IFPTE building maintenance worker at the College since 2013. “I would not have left [the College] as soon if we weren't thrown away by them changing their cleaning positions to ABM.”
In a response letter to the College, Kathleen Hernandez, President of CWA Local 1031, outlined three key issues with the College’s decision to privatize custodial services.
First, according to Hernandez, the College’s actions violate their State Worker Contract, which could lead the union to file a grievance. Second, the College is violating New Jersey’s subcontracting law, which provides grounds for legal action. Third, the alleged savings from privatization are questionable.
Hernandez alleged that this decision specifically violates N.J.S.A 34:13A-50 which restricts subcontracting agreements involving public employers, including state colleges and universities without prior notification or engagement with the affected unions.
As stated in the letter, The College is currently under a 2023-27 contract with CWA and other unions, and if subcontracting proceeds, all affected union members would be entitled to damages under New Jersey legislation.
“You can't contract out people during the life of the contract,” Hernandez said in an interview. "There was no interaction. There was no talking with us, and their numbers are not real.”
President Michael Bernstein told The Signal in an interview that the College has carefully reviewed the numbers.
"We spent a fair amount of time kicking the tires on those numbers, so we certainly are not surprised that the union would beg to differ with our estimates, but we're pretty confident,” Bernstein said.
According to Hernandez, the College has failed to consider all of the factors that contribute to the costs, including reimbursements that New Jersey state colleges receive like sick and vacation time, pension, health benefits and more.
“They need to explain how they came up with what they think they're gonna save,” Hernandez said.
Aside from the legal concerns, another issue the CWA has with the College’s decision to subcontract is the safety of students.
"By contracting out custodial work, it could impact all the students because we don’t know who’s gonna be in the buildings," Hernandez said. “At Rowan University…they have faced a lot of issues because there’s no background checks. People have access to the students’ rooms and it's an unsafe environment.”
The timeline for addressing these concerns remains uncertain, according to Bernstein.
“Whether the proposal will be approved…That'll take anywhere from a month to longer for us to get a response... I can't predict the timing of the Civil Service Commission,” Bernstein said. “They, in the end, have to make the final determinations."
The CWA is urging the College to negotiate with the unions to avoid legal action.
“They should not be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on temporary staff who do not know the contracts or the laws in N.J.,” Hernandez said. “The bottom line is if they're breaking our contract and they're breaking the law, what's to say they're not gonna do it to other units?”
