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University Daily Kansan, December 4, 1980
Housekeeping staff still vexed by labor troubles
By JANENEUFELD
Staff Reporter
Last year at this time, the KU custodians were battling their management. One year later, the department has new management.
But the custodians and the management still aren't seeing eye-to-eye.
Some custodians disagree.
"I think our morale has gotten higher since I got on board," said Dick Bivens, associate director of Facilities Operations in charge of housekeeping.
"I really don't think that anyone's interested in us," said Maggie Cosey, a night custodian on the fourth floor of Wescoe Hall. "You just clock in and clock out, and nobody really cares. It's really getting to be a drag."
The custodians' main complaints are overwork, lack of representation in the department and the new guidelines concerning absenteeism and tardiness.
BIVENS SAID he had improved employee discipline and training and had increased communication between labor and management.
The absentee and tardiness
given students were necessary to maintain
discipline.
"At the time that I started, there was no discipline," Bivens said. "Now we explain very fully what we expect of them."
He said the department was attracting better quality employees because it can spread that the company is good.
Since his arrival, Bivens said, absenteeism has dropped from more than 29 percent to about 10 percent. He also said he had been as high as 45 percent, in half.
In addition, he said, he has introduced regular half-hour training sessions to show employees how to use supervisors instead of initiated weekly meetings with supervisors instead of monthly ones and restocked equipment that had been allowed to run low by the previous payment, American Management Service.
Bivens said that he hoped to continue improving the department, and that the institution of follow-up inspections of buildings was a too priority.
THE HOUSEKEEPING department, in the meantime, is still in flux as the transition between AMS and Bivens progresses.
Thomas Anderson, director of Facilities Operations, said the housekeeping department was still recovering from bitter disagreements that left some employees suspicious and hostile to their management.
Last year, the custodians charged
Assessing the employees and
harming them in future.
The University did not renew its two-year contract with AMS in December 1979 and announced it would run its own housekeeping department.
The custodians formed the Custodian Action Committee in October 1979 to purchase the building.
Bivens took charge of the department on Feb. 4, 1980.
Bivens said the University was better off running its own department.
"I think that if they have been successful they would still be here," Blivens said about them. "Bivens said about them."
FEW CUSTODIANS call for the return of the AMS, but there are some flaws in the new system. they sav.
"They just expect too much of every janitor here," said Alffreda Rayton, a night custodian on the first floor of Strong Hall. "If Bivens came in and worked in our place two or three weeks, they would have the amount of work he's put on us."
Bivens said the department used engineering principles and time studies to determine the size of the custodial staff.
"our staff is adequate," he said. "We need further refinements as to where we are."
Sarah Coffelt, a fourth and fifth floor
waitstaitime custodian at Fresher Hall, said she
was well prepared for the event.
"I can't get done what I want to get done," she said. "This building here, there are lots and lots of people in and around it. You have the work and then it doesn't look very good.
"There isn't anybody in the state system who works too hard," Anderson
"I think we need more help."
said. "There are a lot of people who work hard, but the amount of work that's assigned to a person is not unreasonable."
Pat Gibson, a night custodian on the first floor of Strong, said custodians did high and low dusting and cleaned the rooms with blackboards and blackboards and all windows and doors.
THEY ALSO EMPTY the trash, sweep and vacuum the floors, mop and clean the bathrooms, offices and classrooms.
"There's no way you can hurry through and do it all," said Fran Prough, a night custodian on the third floor of Strong.
"I have to slice something every night." Gilson said.
George Powell, a night custodian on the first floor of Malott Hall, said he didn't think engineering and efficiency were important in work of work involved in cleaning a building.
"Their standards are too high," Powell said. "They measure by volume of square feet rather than by what needs to be done."
There are about 145 custodians in the housekeeping department. The department also has three levels of supervisors: on-site supervisors who work in the individual buildings, zone supervisors who are responsible for several buildings and two chief custodial supervisors who are responsible for the day and night shifts of custodians.
Craig Paul, a night custodian on the
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second floor of Malott, said the staff would be adequate for cleaning the buildings if custodians would show up for work.
"A lot of these folks here, they'll miss four or five or six days, and then they'll wonder why their supervisor gets down on them," he said. "If you just put a minimum amount of work in here and stay out of sight, you'll be OK."
Paul said he didn't think the custodians were overworked.
"Well, it's a state job. That's the best way to sum it up," he said.
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"When we leave here at two in the morning, it's sparkling clean as far as I'm concerned," Cosey said. "But my mother is very proud of it, only if something is wrong."
SEVERAL OF THE custodians said that even if they managed to finish all their work, no one appreciated the job they did.
"If I'm done, I'd at least like to have someone say, 'Hey, this looks nice.' I got to go home and do more cleaning. That's why I want some compliments."
Bivens said he tried to find supervisors who could deal with people.
"We need supervisors who know not only the nuts and bolts of the job but also to deal with people on a one-to-one basis," he said.
George Aeschiman, the night building supervisor for Snow Hall, said he thought tensions between the custodians and management were caused by what he termed "the club mentality" of the management.
The management wields an invisible club and pressures the employees into working, Aeschilman said, instead of encouraging or complimenting them.
"To some people, pressure might work," he said. "To some it won't. I think that's what a lot of the problem is."
"I would praise people for a good job.
That gives them incentive to work.
That's the way I see it. A lot of people
don't see it that way."
BIVENS SAID THE department to give people genuine compilations.
If a letter praising a custodian is sent to the department, Bivens said, copies are sent to the custodian, placed in his fileboard file and posted on the bulletin board.
"We are fair," he said. "We are compassionate when they have serious problems. We are genuinely interested in helping others. We care more than overcome that this is a good place to work."
Prough said that although the custodians were free to complain, she didn't think their opinions had any influence in the department.
"I don't know that we have any voice, really," she said.
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"They'll listen. But what gets done,
who knows?" Cosev said.
Cosey said she once complained when she didn't get her paycheck for the month because of a mix-up in procedure.
The management was not sympathetic, she said.
"They flat-out just didn't care," she said. "The way they got it."
Ooey said she told them, 'my hearing all you people say. I'm sorry' will not pay a bill I have. I want my work, just like you want your work
"It still doesn't make any sense to me." she said.
Absenteeism and tardiness guidelines are another area in the department that doesn't make sense to some custodians.
She got an interest-free loan of 60 percent of her check, Cosey said, which she paid back when she got the actual check on the 17th of the month. The regular payday in the first of the month.
CHRONIC LATENESS is defined as being five or fewer minutes late more than 15 times a year, and extreme lateness is more than 30 times a week or more eight times a year.
The guidelines define chronic absenteeism as 12 unexcused absences in a year. The employee is warned after two absences, recommended for a five-day suspension after four absences, and recommended for dismissal six.
In both cases, the employee is warned and recommended for suspension if they fail to do so.
"I think the guidelines are fair," Bivens said. "I think they have been accepted by our force of people."
"You either come in sicker than a dog or you go get a doctor's excuse," Charles Freeman, floor technician at Strong, said. "The only reason he's cut down absenteeism is because everyone comes in sicker than a dog."
Freeman said a doctor's note was required for an excused absence.
"A lot of doctors won't give you an excuse unless you make an appointment and pay them." Gibson said.
Anderson said some people complained about the guidelines, but they were necessary to maintain discipline.
Anderson said the housekeeping department would recover from the hostility between labor and capital. He admitted from the AMS conflict with time.
"The department has growing
pauses. I said, 'I think it's growin
in the right place.'"