In the recently renovated Huestis Hall, under the humming fluorescent lights, a stout janitor bobs between research laboratories to clean. At 1 a.m. the building is mostly empty, save for one graduate teaching fellow working late. Often the only sound is the crash of a cube in the second floor ice machine, the whir of a centrifuge or, occasionally, a door lightly closing shut.
Ron Tucker has worked here for eight years. He pulls the hefty key ring from his hip, grabs a yellow-dotted key and opens the door to his office. The door to the small utility closet reads “custodian” in faded white capital letters. It’s adorned with Oregon football posters. He’s a season-ticket holder, his only luxury.
Tucker is one of 1,207 full-time campus workers at the University of Oregon. Called “classified staff,” the workers are represented by the local chapter of the Service Employees International Union Local 503. The union says 412 of those workers, including Tucker, make less than $30,000 a year. Federally, a family of four earning around $24,000 annually is eligible for food stamps.
On Sept. 28, after months of bargaining, the union came to a tentative agreement with the Oregon University System for a new two-year contract. SEIU bargained on behalf of all seven of Oregon’s public universities, and despite working on the wealthiest campus in the system, a state-wide contract only guaranteed campus workers as much money as the poorest school could match.
It nearly came to a strike.
Tucker, who lives in a mobile home in Veneta, Ore., with his 19-year-old son, Kyle, only makes around $1,700 in take-home pay per month. But he was prepared to sit out of work, even if it meant cutting the cable and shrinking his meals. Tucker switched careers from 18 years as a roofer to a custodian at the UO so that he could work year-round and get health benefits — Kyle has cerebral palsy and autism. He also attends Lane Community College on a grant.
“It’s my belief that they think they can step on our throats all they want and we won’t jump up gasping for air,” Tucker said.
On Sept. 12, union members authorized a strike and planned to picket on the very first day of fall term. Decrying the system was low-balling their annual cost-of-living pay increases and salary steps, SEIU members only came to an agreement with the system two days before the planned walk-out. Their salary steps remain intact and they’ll see a 1.5 percent bump in pay starting in December.
Tucker is an affable man. He stands around 5-foot-8 with a full crop of graying hair. His uniform for the night is a pair of $12 shoes from Wal-mart, black cargo shorts and an Oregon Ducks 2013 Fiesta Bowl T-shirt.
“I’m just happy we’re not going backwards,” he said.
Workers in the union, whose jobs vary from custodians to cooks in student housing to secretaries, will get their cost of living adjustments. Tucker says he will net about $150 a month more starting in December, just enough to resume making car payments on the ‘92 Chrysler LeBaron his former father-in-law sold him.
Part of the struggle in raising wages for campus workers is dwindling state support. Throughout bargaining, OUS maintained that its state budget hasn’t undergone a cost of living adjustment in 10 years, despite thousands of more students in higher education.
“We can’t offer everything that the union asked for because it’s not available for all the campuses,” said Di Saunders, the director of communications for OUS, noting that the funds going to pay workers comes from the shrinking state budget. “Students are basically funding the higher education system in Oregon.”
SEIU wasn’t convinced. Citing a boom in system-wide hiring in every department except classified staff, the union demanded the wage increase and no more furlough days.
“I would say very few of our members feel respected by the system,” said Kurt Willcox, chief bargainer for the local chapter of SEIU and a University of Oregon employee. “I know OUS wants to say that if they gave us anything more they’d have to raise tuition, but we don’t think that’s true.”
Though the union didn’t secure wage floors, which would raise up the lowest paid workers closer to average, its members were able to prevent furlough days from entering this round of contracts. In order to soften the blow of the recession for OUS, the union agreed to various unpaid days off during those two contracts. Tucker had eight between 2009 and 2011, and seven more since then.
“We’re not able to have what we had several decades ago, where you could work at McDonald’s and have enough money to have an apartment and live a decent life,” Saunders said of the struggle to pay state employees. “It’s not just happening at the universities, it’s happening across the state and across the country.”
This past summer, on his last furlough day, Tucker and his son returned to the coast. It was his 15th mandatory day off without pay in the past four years and the pair spent it at Sandland Adventures in Florence, riding along the dune ridges in a buggy before they flew their one-string kites on the beach.
Tucker understands that even with the new contract, he will still earn fairly meager wages, but the health benefits of working at a public university outweighs that.
When he’s not pushing his wide, green broom across the laboratory, he’ll try to keep returning to the coast.
“The sounds of the ocean crashing and that stuff is just real powerful. It kind of centers you and you realize how powerful things are outside our own control,” Tucker said.