CSUEU BoD Resolution Supporting CFA

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Every year my old employer gave each employee a “free” turkey at Thanksgiving.

Some of us talked about forming a union. We wanted to get more people to sign cards for an election. Several of the employees held back, not because the employer was treating them well but because, “the company is not all bad, after all, they give us a free turkey.” Despite the fact that I was supporting a young family, I wanted nothing to do with the damn turkey. I learned how employers can throw crumbs to people and in return some folks will give them their souls.

I feel the same about the so-called staff appreciation breakfast being put on tomorrow for SJSU staff, while at the same time the CSU is looking to raise parking fees 400% or more, pay is stagnated and the faculty are having rolling strikes at CSU campus.

Just as I felt when I worked at the fish take factory, I appreciate the job, but I do not feel appreciated. Then as now, it was a job. Don’t lie to me and tell me we are appreciated. They can put that breakfast the same place I suggested my former employer put their turkey.

October 25, 2011 4:30 p.m.

The batteries have been replaced and I received a call from the head electrician (whom I trust) who said they have been tested and the emergency lights now work. All that to get some batteries replaced. So,  this will close the matter with regards to this one lab.

However, the bigger question still remains about the status of all other emergency lighting systems on campus. I have requested, on behalf of the union, a status report for the entire campus. I suspect that what happened in Clark may be a symptom of a larger issue of deferred maintenance on, and neglect of, emergency systems at SJSU.

October 25, 2011 2:35 p.m.

Guess what, after my calling in CalOSHA and threatening to go to the Spartan Daily, they replaced the batteries (not bulbs.) They made it a priority.

October 25, 2011, 12:05 p.m.

According to a reliable source: “The bulbs for the emergency egress lights in Clark Hall 102 have been ordered and will be delivered at 2:00pm today. By 4:00pm today, the Electricians will have the lights installed and checked.”

Clark Hall 102 during power outage. Photo lit with a flash.

On October 21, 2011 there was a power outage that affected Clark Hall. At the time the power went out, well over half the emergency lights on the first floor of Clark Hall failed to come on. Since daylight savings time will be ending soon and the lab is sometimes heavily used at night; if this had been an emergency much of the room would have been plunged into darkness.

Clark Hall Lights, report to FD&O.

So few lights worked, this could be a very hazardous situation in the event of an emergency. This was immediately reported.

Fixtures that failed to light in Clark Hall 102 during a power failure.

As a union shop steward I suggested, effective immediately, not allowing this facility be occupied at times of darkness until this hazard is rectified. Staff likely would not be able to safely initiate evacuation safely in the facility in the event of an emergency under such conditions.

A non-functioning emergency lighting fixture.

I asked management to please get this resolved as soon as possible. I included a copy of the related FD&O work order as well as shots of a couple of the lights that failed to illuminate and the peer mentor work area. The pictures were taken with a flash; of course.

Three days later nothing had happened and no action had been taken by the university. I called CalOSHA and filed a complaint and again followed up with university management. After I called CalOSHA the university started addressing the issue. I spoke with David L. Krack, the director of Environmental Health and Safety at SJSU’s Facilities Development and Operations (FD&O).

The head electrician came over and inspected the emergency lights four days after the hazard had been reported. In response to my conversation with the head electrician I sent Krack the following in an e-mail:

David:

After my conversation with the head electrician (after FD&O inspected the emergency egress lighting in Clark Hall 102) it seems possible batteries may not be immediately available for the failed backup lights in Clark Hall 102. I want to be clear on what we expect to happen if this situation is not remedied today.

We expect that Clark Hall 102 will close at 6:30 p.m. today, and before dark every day, until this situation is corrected. Safe operation of the facility is dependent on the presence of functioning emergency egress lighting after dark.

I am sure the safety of our students who use the lab as well as the employees who work in the facility is our shared first priority.

Last night the popular computer lab had another power failure. According to a staff member the area was plunged into darkness. That is simply not acceptable.

University Employees:
A health and safety grievance has been filed on this matter. I will keep university employees informed of the progress of that grievance.

So, you can imagine; I have been called a whiner many, many times. I consider it a compliment. That’s a big reason I blog. Blogs can be great places to whine.

Many people are afraid of confrontation. They will remain silent even when they see problems. In my opinion a strong organization is one that confronts problems. But, how does an organization know it has a problem? It embraces its whiners.

The whiners are your canaries in the coal mine, your first line of alert. So, if you call me a whiner don’t be surprised if I say, why thank you.

Organizations who recognize the value of whiners and provide them with a venue; have a lot to gain. Those who don’t, risk finding much harsher critics; their customers.

Click on photo to enlarge

I have so many wonderful memories of my mom. She was a regular Norma Rae. Pauline was an Irish American working woman who was a lifetime member of the United Steelworker’s Union. I still have her union card.

I remember her working the picket line when her plant went on strike. She was president of her union local. She also liked to drink beer and smoked. It was that last part that killed her.

Despite her working she was old school. She did all the cooking and cleaning and waited on my father. Even though she was a fireball in the workplace she was afraid of driving and did not learn to drive until she was in her forties. When my father was hospitalized in San Francisco she drove to the city to visit him even though the drive terrified her. I sat in the back seat and was given the job of giving the money to the toll taker on the Bay Bridge. Once she drove away from the toll both before we completed that transaction.

My first wife Candy took care of my mom when she was dying. Candy discovered her one morning in the living room. She had apparently had gotten up in the middle of the night to have one last cigarette.

I have just returned from being on workers compensation for almost three months and am surprised (putting it mildly) to learn the security hole that gives student assistants access to the e-mail of every student, counselor, faculty, staff and administrator at SJSU is apparently still open. I posted about this in early August and have spoken to management, and been speaking to management, about this since issue since about March.

Why is hole still open? [See related post]

In an astonishing invasion of privacy, it admitted entire emails, web pages and even passwords were ‘mistakenly collected’ by antennae on its high-tech Street View cars. [Read More]

Because university e-mail between faculty, counselors and students is often very confidential this may be of concern to some university employees and students. According to Allen “Scotland Yard is already considering whether the company has broken the law.”

“The micro-erosion of jobs is where little bits of our worker’s jobs are taken away, and soon we have no jobs left,” said McGee. A good example of micro-erosion of jobs occurred at San Jose State University. Last Spring SJSU laid off about five percent of its CSUEU represented university employees, while at the same time outsourcing its e-mail services to Google.

When the e-mail system was in house CSUEU represented employees maintained the servers and protected the security of university e-mail. A common task done by CSUEU represented staff was password resets for users who lost or forgot their passwords. Many of the staff who did this were classified as Information Technology Consultants (ITCs.) These ITCs had other duties, few if any of them had resetting passwords as over 50% of their duties. None of them had campus wide ability to reset passwords. This work was distributed. Staff reset passwords only for the employees they themselves supported.

As part of the migration to Google the password reset function was taken away from long-time university employees and transferred to student assistants. These student assistants were given the ability to reset the passwords, and possibly access the e-mail accounts of every student, faculty member, counselor and staff employee at the university.

The “cost” of Google migration for CSU campuses was theoretically zero. But, the real cost as measured in training, lost productivity, weakened security and support of the Google migration has been far from free. In the SJSU example, the CSU system may be saving a few staff jobs and eliminating a few servers while incurring all the expenses listed above and concurrently sacrificing the security and integrity of university e-mail.

The true cost of contracting out state workers jobs, when you add in all factors, has cost our state dearly. SEIU Local 1000 has reported, “By our estimates, the state could save approximately $350 million annually by utilizing state workers to cut unnecessary and wasteful outsourcing in IT, medical services and architectural and engineering contracts.”

The micro-erosion of jobs is especially dangerous to us. There is language in our collective bargaining agreement offering some job protection for university workers when their jobs are eliminated due to contracting out. But, it has been harder to fight the loss of our work when the work being eliminated is spread among a pool of workers. In the SJSU example you had maybe 30 or 40 staff performing these functions as a percentage of their work. The work was contracted out, three workers in the classification that did the work were laid off and the university has argued there was no impact to CSUEU staff of the contracting out.

The micro-erosion of jobs does not even have to result in layoffs to be a threat. Attrition alone can take a toll, as jobs are not refilled as the work is taken away. Less staff paying into the retirement system threatens retirees as well as staff.

Not only does outsourcing take jobs out of the CSU system, it can take them totally out of the state and even the nation. Google has tens of thousands of oversees workers in Bangalore, Gurgaon and Hyderabad, India as well as other nations like China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. This is only one company. The CSU is outsourcing our jobs and off shoring our tax dollars.

“The state has been unwilling to collect information on private contracts and make it publicly available,” said Marie Harder, a senior information systems analyst and member of SEIU Local 1000′s Outsourcing Task Force. “We need to hold the state accountable to how much tax payer money they waste each year on outsourcing projects that could be done better and cheaper by state employees.”