An open letter to President Easter and Chancellor Wise:

There was a time, not so very long ago, when universities actively defended academic values; when they fought, as institutions, for integrity in the search for truth (however truth was conceived); for openness in the creation and transmission of ideas; and for that basic human decency that is the legacy of both religious and humanistic intellectual traditions. All of these values are now embattled in our universities. My concern in this letter, however, is with the last and the most important — with human decency, with the simple yet profound idea that one should treat others as one would like to be treated.

The question I would like to put both of you is this: Is the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign behaving with basic decency toward all of its employees? Is the institution for which you are responsible treating our building and food service workers as you yourselves would like to be treated if you were in their position?

These are the men and women who clean offices, labs and classrooms and care for the grounds and animals on campus. These are the people who feed our students. Their physical labor is essential for your administrative labor and for my intellectual labor. And yet far too many of them now belong to the “working poor.” No matter how hard they work or how eager they are to take on more work, their pay remains so low or their hours so limited that they cannot earn enough to support themselves and their families.

It is a truly shameful fact that some University employees — even some of those with years of experience and loyalty to our university — must rely on food pantries to feed themselves and their children and must take refuge with relatives to avoid homelessness.

I’m sure if they had any other choice, they would be taking other jobs. However, there are very few jobs to be had in this area. Having no other choice, our building and food service workers hang on to jobs at the University, even as the University, which should be a bastion of basic human decency, depresses their wages, cuts their hours, and, most recently, attempts to undermine their union by illegally retaliating against its most active members.

Of course the University has its own financial problems. But somehow it can find the money for “more important” people’s pay raises, for all sorts of “initiatives” that pad administrative resumes, and for little “perks” ranging from country club memberships to catered lunches for those who already have far too much.

It would not actually take that much money out of the University budget to bring our building and food service workers up to a living wage.

I therefore call on you to take action on behalf of our lowest-paid and most vulnerable colleagues in the academic enterprise — and yes, they are our colleagues, for without their essential physical work, no intellectual work would be possible on this campus. I call on you, first of all, to negotiate in good faith with Service Employees International Union, the building and food service workers’ union, in simple accordance with the law.

I also call on you to freeze new administrative hires, to stop funding some of the sillier initiatives, to give up your country club memberships, and, yes, maybe even pay for lunch out of your own pocket until the poorest members of what Chancellor Wise has taken to calling the “Illinois family” are treated like real family members, with some basic decency, with some respect for their human dignity.

Sincerely,

Megan McLaughlin,

professor of history, gender and women’s studies and medieval studies