Housekeepers have heard, said and seen it all. Time and again, grievance after grievance, their concerns have been pushed aside by an unresponsive management. It may have taken a $104,000, seven-month review to get there, but some of the University’s lowest paid workers are no longer flying below its radar.
The University has pledged an urgent response to the objective external review. Now, to earn the trust of housekeepers, it must back up those words with action and create a culture of accountability and fairness.
That trust was lost almost 15 years ago, in 1997, when housekeepers protested the University’s reneging on a $1 million settlement reached the year before that included pay raises, back pay and formal recognition of the Housekeepers Association.
Through more than 400 interviews, the PRM Consulting Group revealed the true scale of problems within the housekeeping ranks. The report produced a dismal number — 33. That was approximately, and disconcertingly, the average percentage of housekeepers who felt managers fairly distributed assignments, consistently and fairly applied policies and rules, communicated to their satisfaction and created an environment free from harassment, discrimination and intimidation.
PRM has proposed more than 45 recommendations. While some might prove infeasible, the University must embrace the same spirit that led it to PRM: objectivity.
With Bill Burston no longer directing the department, the University has an open window to achieve these goals. It must seize this opportunity to implement proposals like “Safe to Say,” which aims to create a culture in which employees feel comfortable holding management accountable. Key to this step will be providing non-English speakers sufficient resources to be heard, understand their rights and report any infringement on those rights.
Accomplishing these goals will require an advisory committee drawn from a broad swath of housekeepers of different ethnicities and work shifts who are willing to address the hard topics.
To do anything less would leave housekeepers with little more than broken promises and lip service.
