Panel Blasts IU Outsourcing at
Labor Studies Brown Bag

Nineteen campus and community members attended a panel discussion on Sept. 27 titled “Outsourcing Jobs at IU: Issues and Prospects.” Panelists included Peter Kaczmarczyk, president of CWA Local 4730, Dallas Murphy, president of AFSCME Local 832, and Pat Brantlinger, Indiana University Professor Emeritus of English

Kaczmarczyk led off by arguing that recent outsourcing efforts at IU have been “ideologically driven” by true believers who think “the private sector does it better.” The one-time, short-term influx of cash IU gained from recent outsourcings comes at the expense of employees’ wages, benefits and union protections and threatens to place a burden on tax-supported social services, he said. He noted that IU Vice President Terry Clapacs is on record as saying that cutting benefits would be the biggest source of savings from outsourcing.

Kaczmarczyk warned students they’d be wrong to think outsourcing will help control costs. The ready cash from privatizing the bookstore and motor pool is committed to infrastructure improvements and new science buildings, he pointed out. Meanwhile, reports have begun to trickle in of reduced convenience and lower-quality service for students and staff as a result of privatization. (See story on page 1) IU administrators seem ready to turn the university into a collection of “strip malls with an occasional classroom in between,” Kaczmarczyk quipped.

The cost in terms of employee loyalty, welfare, and workplace satisfaction is also significant, Kaczmarczyk argued. “We now have two classes of employees at IU, working next to one another within the same bargaining units, with different levels of pay, benefits and protections,” he noted. “The staff feel cut off and abandoned. The loss of fee courtesy in particular reduces the affordability of education for the families of IU employees.” And despite the administration’s claim that no employee would lose his or her job, “current IU employees will be pushed out the door in the long run,” he predicted. “The consulting committees set up by the administration to help it consider whether and how to privatize have included almost no service staff,” he added. “The administration seems willing to treat the staff like disposable components.”

Next up was Murphy, who stated it was “morally wrong to sell jobs for profit.” In addition, he argued, members of the university community are receiving “substandard service due to the inadequate accountability” that comes with privatizing campus units. “Given the hefty tuition students pay, they deserve the best service possible,” Murphy affirmed. He encouraged concerned citizens to continue the fight: “Community resistance

Pat Brantlinger, Indiana University Professor Emeritus of English, Peter Kaczmarczyk, President of CWA Local 4730, and Dallas Murphy, President of AFSCME Local 832, were the panelists at the Labor Studies Brown Bag Luncheon on September 27th.

to outsourcing is the only reason Barnes and Noble agreed to retain IU employees,” he said. Kaczmarczyk agreed: “Shaming the university in the media has been effective.”

    Murphy pointed to schools that had to buy back contracts for privatized services when the quality of service declined. “IUPUI, Butler and Florida International all took back their custodial services,” he said. And the University of Pennsylvania, having tried out privatization of services, is now a model for de-privatizing.

Brantlinger, the third panelist, noted that the successful bidder for the IU bookstore operation—Barnes and Noble—and rival bidder Follett are the two leading bookstore corporations on American campuses, together controlling 60% of the market. They are big enough, he said, to cut deals with publishers to jack up textbook prices. “Is this an example of free competition?” he asked rhetorically. He shared a report from a professor at Southern Mississippi University that the price of her standard sociology textbook went up $18 after Barnes and Noble took over management of the bookstore. In response to an audience question, the three panelists acknowledged that a boycott of Barnes and Noble might offer an effective strategy. Some faculty members are already ordering their books through Boxcar Books, noted Brantlinger.

What’s happening at IU, Brantlinger argued, mirrors what’s happening around the world under the impact of neoliberal globalization, which leads “not to the development of the poor people of the world but to their increasing impoverishment.” Moreover, what’s affecting service jobs at IU is also affecting faculty jobs, he argued. The IU English Department affords an example of “the slow-motion privatization of academic departments,” he suggested. Brantlinger said he’s watched the full-time English faculty shrink in numbers over the years from 65 to 50, with the slack taken up mostly by non-tenure-track teachers.

In response to an audience question, Brantlinger took issue with the stark distinction between academic units and university business functions that President McRobbie voiced on a Friday Edition radio program. Brantlinger pointed to the recent deal on computers forged between Sun Corporation and the Kelley School of Business, which rendered the Kelley dependent on private techies for service. Other deals with private companies involve patent rights to a certain percentage of university research, he noted. Drawing a stark distinction also underrates the contribution of service employees, “who interact with students all the time,” he said.

Graphic above was part of a letter an IU employee received from IU administration. For employees who use fee courtesy, the percentage of compensation represented by benefits (and threatened by outsourcing) would be even higher.

The next Labor Studies Brown Bag presentation is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 8, noon, in the Poplars Building 627. Gini Park, visiting scholar from Korea, will speak on “The Labor Movement in Korea: Challenges and Responses.” For more information, e-mail Prof. Lynn Duggan at lduggan@indiana.edu.

Patrick Brantlinger, Jobs with Justice member and IU emeritus professor of English, published “Privatizing Indiana” in the September-October 2007 issue of Academe, the official bulletin of the American Association of University Professors. The article is online at www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2007/SO/Feat/Bran.htm

Also included in the issue is “Privatizing Pennsylvania, and Then Un-privatizing” by Jerel Wohl, found online at www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2007/SO/Feat/Wohl.htm.