FEATURES 13
UNC: Insufficient Funds and Moral Bankruptcy
By Fred Wherry
Ink Contributor
We are all housekeepers. Our
community is our home, and we
are responsible for its upkeep, the
well-being of its inhabitants, and
the dirt that falls on the floor of
our home. In a community, we all
share in its benefits and its
burdens.
In our national community,
there is the phenomenon of the
STOATive o
the bottom of a well, up to their
necks in frustration. The
University’s administration has
dropped a rope down the well,
but the rope is far too short. In
addition, it has said to the
housekeepers, “See, we’ve done
the best we could. So what if the
rope does not reach its
destination? Take what you can
get and shut up.”
The University’s short rope
was the recent pay raise, which
Most housekeepers are Black women.
working poor. Many work hard
for their money, a 40-hour week,
yet they are still below the poverty
line. Those who are slightly above
the poverty line rest on the thresh
hold between the nastiness of a
national statistic and the
sociopolitical road signs that
indicate that there is “No Outlet.”
Nooutletfor better jobs. Nooutlet
formore training. Jim Crow wears
a new dress, and he is fierce.
In Gloria Naylor’s made for
television mini-series,‘T/ie
Women of Brewster Place,”
Mattie laments, “It seems like
every time black folks try to do a
little something, somebody
always got to be throwing up a
wall.”
—The UNC Housekeepers’
Movement can understand
Mattie’s lament. The movement
is ccanposed of a group of workers
on this campus who have never
asked for a handout—onlyahand
up. They have been dropped to
came as a result of years of
lobbying (“noise making”) by the
UNC Housekeepers Movement.
The University was shamed into
this action. After all,
housekeepers were paid poverty
wages.
The images were too
shocking. The workers in the
lowest pay grade were largely
black and female. S la very seemed
to have transformed into
sharecropping, and sharecropping
into jobs with the lowest pay
grades. UNC’s housekeepers
were not calling for a short rope
or a pat on the back. Nor were
they groveling for cold slabs of
meat for Thanksgiving dinner or
canned goods at Christmas time.
Instead, they wanted equity.
UNC’s housekeepers wanted
wages that would pennit them to
secure adequate child care, and
wages that would enable them to
stop wwking second and third
jobs just to make a living.
Housekeepers wanted
meaningful catapult training
programs so that they could gain
the skills necessary to receive
higher paying jobs. UNC’s
housekeepers also wanted a
fairer supervisory system in
which they are treated with
respect as adults.
We, the students, who inhabit
the same conununity that the
housekeepers as university
employees inhabit, should ask
ourselves severa 1 questions;
What if we worked as
housekeepers? What if I were
one of the 400 housekeepers
who wanted to take part in the
apprenticeship program? Would
I feel like I had access to that
program if only two positions in
that program existed? The answer
is — fM'obably not.
The apprenticeship program
is available for about 1 percent of
the housekeepers and grounds
keepers. Indeed, I would have
better odds as a student securing
acceptance into any Ivy League
graduate or professional program
than I would as a housekeeper
trying to get into the
apprenticeship program. With
the new clerical program that
has been opened to
housekeepers, the number of
total spaces available in the
training programs only rises to
just over 20.
Let us not forget about the 30
scholarships awarded to UNC
employees and their families
last year. Only two out of those
30 scholarships went to
housekeepers. And these two
scholarships, which housekeepers
received, were considerably less
than any of the other awards. In
short, the opportunities for
housekeepers here are restricted.
And these opportunities are
difficult to access.
The fact is that the problems
of the working poor hurt the
children of our communities.
Today, one in five children—12
million—live in poverty.
Children are twice as likely as
any other group to be poor. Most
poor children have working
parents.
There are also racial
differences among children living
in poverty. Seventy percent of
black children are poor while
only 30percent of white children
are poor. These figures show
how serious the problems of the
working poor are and how badly
they nee d to be addressed
because the children in our
communities are the adults of
tomorrow.
These children see their
parents work from sun up until
sundown. Theirparentsareadults
who are following the American
values of hard work and thrift.
Yet, there is no reward. There is
no American dream. There is no
“life, liberty, (or) pursuit of
happiness.” Their children see a
nightmare of racial and economic
injustice.
The “dream” that Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. had has turned
into a poke of lies shattered
under the voice of a power
structure that throws up its hands
shouting, “We’ve done enough
for these people. What more do
they want?”
As we debate the merits of
“doing something about the
housekeepers,” we amputate a
part of our community. We make
their lives exclusive from our
own. We say that to improve the
conditions of our working poor
will come at a cost. But so did
ending slavery. So too did
ending segregation. No one ever
said that justice was easy.
In our Bicentennial year
whose theme is “Community” and
whose keynote speaker spoke of
the necessity for “change,” the
UNC housekeepers have
attempted to cash that check of
“change” and “community.”
Unfortunately, our university
leadership has returned to the
housekeepers both of the checks
marked “Insufficient Funds.” And
UNC’s housekeepers continue
down a road of “No Outlet.”
For far too long our brothers and sisters have been living in pcverty.
This must cxici With student support, the Housekeeper's Association
(HKA) hcis made progress. BUT, the following 5 basic goals have not
been reached;
- Recognition of HKA as the official representative
body of UNC Housdceepers
- Chancellor Hardin's commitment to meeting with
the HKA Steering Committee
- $16,000 minimum salary
- Efficient training for advancement
- An end to demeaning working conditions
EVERY WEDNESDAY AT 5;30 CAMPUS Y BASEMENT
THIS IS A TIME FOR ACTION!!!
JOIN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST MODERN-DAY SLAVERY COME
TO WE ARE ALL IIOUSEICEEPERS MEETINGS
A PORTRAIT OF
MODERN-DAY SLAVERY
14,500
135,000
90
70
Typical UNC Housekeeper's Salary
Chancellar Hardin's Salary (plus house, car,
and state-paid housekeeper)
Percentage of UNC Housekeepers that are
African-American
Percentage of UNC Housekeepers that are
Women