CWA Campus Workers Rally Against Outsourcing and Job Cuts

On April 11, CWA members at the University of Kentucky (UK), represented by the United Campus Workers-CWA (UCW-CWA Local 3821), joined students and local political allies at a rally to demand that University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto abandon plans to outsource facilities jobs and reassign hundreds of workers to the Beyond Blue LLC through the university’s Integrate Blue initiative.

Megan Herdt, a counseling psychology faculty member in the College of Education and UCW-CWA member, said in reaction to these announcements, “These are huge changes that are being proposed that could affect an entire generation of UK workers. We need more voices to be included in these discussions and plans for things to move forward in a healthy way that protects workers, students, and the Commonwealth.”

UK is also looking to outsource custodial, groundskeeping, and maintenance jobs under a 30-year contract through its Enterprise Services Partnership initiative.

UCW-CWA member RK Carter, a custodial worker on campus, spoke out against these changes: “The university keeps saying this word, ‘efficiency.’ We are already skeleton crews doing our best to keep the campus safe and clean. How much more efficient can we get? The truth is that when you privatize, you see efficiency by cutting wages and cutting jobs.”

UK UCW-CWA members need your help! Click here to sign their petition.

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.