As some may have seen, Students Stand with Staff is circulating a petition calling for the College to restore health care benefits that were cut in January and stop all further subcontracting. Co-pays, deductibles, premiums and the cost of medications are on the rise. The College released a statement in April stating that it did not "dramatically cut health care benefits" ("Students rally for staff health care," April 6). From speaking directly with workers on this campus affected by these cuts, however, we have concluded that this isn't the case.
Through speaking with the heads of the local union and reviewing the College's new benefit plan, we calculate that with these cuts, workers are now paying up to an additional $4,000 out-of-pocket per year for health care. Health care is now nearly unaffordable for several staff members. While these health care cuts are progressive meaning that those who make more pay more for their coverage many low-paid workers are still struggling to pay their medical bills.
Subcontracting is a practice in which the College sells dining areas or other services to outside companies. The College has already subcontracted the Hanover Inn and Caf North at the Dartmouth Skiway. The College is planning on subcontracting the new caf in Baker-Berry Library. In the case of the Hanover Inn, the outside company Pyramid re-hired workers with worse benefits.
Administrators and students use the "tough economic times" to justify cutting workers and their benefits. It wasn't an inefficient workforce but rather the national financial crisis, conflicts of interest and irresponsible management like having our own Board of Trustee members' firms manage our investments that contributed to our financial struggles. Regardless of whether layoffs and cuts to benefits make the College more "efficient," what Students Stand with Staff is presenting is a different set of priorities with which to make economic decisions. We do not accept using a financial crisis as a reason to disadvantage workers and working- and middle-class communities. Cutting health care coverage is not an innocent cut, a depoliticized "difficult decision" during "difficult times." These cuts push working- and middle-class communities into greater economic struggle while those at the top remain minimally affected. Budget cuts at Dartmouth have never been evenly distributed. In January 2009, 75 faculty members proposed cutting the salaries of senior faculty and administrators in order to more equitably and communally share the financial burden of an economic downturn. The College ignored this proposal.
The College administrators have presented a "hardship fund" as a safety net to staff with medical emergencies. The hardship fund, along with another hardship fund set up last year for those who were laid off, is lauded as a compassionate "sacrifice" of administrators' salaries. These charitable funds cannot adequately make up for a long-term, structural change that makes basic services, like health care, a financial struggle for low-income families. The administration also justifies these cuts because the College will remain a competitive provider in the Upper Valley and among our peer institutions. Fair treatment of our labor force cannot be measured by being better than someone else and staying "competitive" in a market of employers and educational institutions. Rather, it must be measured by our own standards that we set for ourselves against a moral and political compass of justice and equality.
At Dartmouth and across the country, workers are consistently being explicitly or implicitly blamed for financial crises. We hear arguments that the Dartmouth workforce is "bloated," or they shouldn't complain because they are well paid. Claiming that the Dartmouth workforce is bloated ignores the 114 union positions that have been left unfilled over the past few years. Low-paid college workers are barely able to get by on an average salary of $35,000 to $40,000 in a region in which a family of four needs $37,000 to $45,000 to live. It is ludicrous for us to be criticizing workers for wanting a secure life as opposed to settling for "getting by" instead of criticizing the accumulation of wealth at the top.
We urge students to resist what seems like an economic rationale of "hard times" and instead stand up for a different set of standards with which to govern the College.
Phoebe Gardener '11 is a guest columnist and co-founder of Students Stand with Staff.
