Spring Break
As union and company debate possible layoffs, janitor just hopes to pay the bills
Christopher Duray
Issue date: 11/20/08 Section: News
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"If I had to pick my favorite western stars," he said, "John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Audie Murphy - not the black comedian, a different person - oh, and that other guy, I forget his name."
He rubbed his wrinkling black chin and smiled broadly, thinking back to the films of his childhood in St. Lucia and revealing the dark gap of a missing tooth, the long -lost casualty of an aggressive rugby scrum.
"Yul Brynner!" he finally said. "I like Yul Brynner. I prefer him in Roman movies, though. He had a Roman movie, 'Taras Bulba?' Something like that."
Marcel is one of 26 janitors at UConn who may face layoffs by the end of the year. It's a possibility he's especially worried about since, without a UConn paycheck, he won't be able to keep up with the mortgage payments on his house in Hartford and at his late age and this poor economy, he doubts he would be able to find a job that would let him retire at an acceptable age.
The threat of firings has loomed large since early in the year, although the company that manages some of UConn's janitors, GCA Services Inc., hasn't fully committed to layoffs. They're still in discussions with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) over the matter, but when the company was hired in December 2007, the university, on the advice of an efficiency consultant, made staff reduction a requirement in their contract. At the time, all parties, including SEIU, seemed satisfied that it could be done easily and humanely by the process of attrition, that is, that when workers quit their jobs, no new staff are hired to replace them.
Then the stock market plummeted, and with $12.1 million cut from UConn's budget, the prospect of layoffs seemed a lot more likely.
SEIU immediately began drumming up support among the students, and lobbying to save the janitors' jobs. GCA began quietly insisting that the union is misrepresenting them, since no layoffs have officially been declared. Meanwhile, university spokespeople have tried washing their hands of the problem by labeling it a private labor dispute between GCA and SEIU.
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