Georgetown University staff resist after being asked to take new public health roles or unpaid leave

The first iteration of Redeploy Georgetown, unveiled in August, referred to as on staff members to provide their assist. But some workers, asked just lately to take new roles, stated this system not feels voluntary. Nonunion staff, who’re largely ladies and other people of shade, have been asked to take on the momentary jobs or go months with out pay.

University officers say this system is designed to stave off layoffs and keep away from furloughs, noting different universities have shed jobs within the wake of the pandemic. Redeploy Georgetown is described as a budget-tightening measure; hiring sufficient contractors to assist the campus because it reopens would price about $5 million, officers stated.

The program is “a temporary and essential measure that supports our health and safety efforts on campus while keeping our workforce fully employed,” Meghan Dubyak, a spokeswoman for the college, stated in a press release.

But because the coronavirus continues to rage and extremely transmissible variants of the virus traverse the globe, workers who’ve been referred to as to the entrance strains fear for his or her security and say they really feel pressured by the college to take on jobs for which they by no means utilized.

A current outbreak of circumstances on and round campus has heightened tensions; not less than 22 individuals have reported contracting the virus since Jan. 17, forcing the college to droop in-person conferences for hybrid lessons till Feb. 15, in accordance to an e mail despatched to college students Wednesday evening. The semester began Monday.

Concerns round Redeploy Georgetown comes as data show the lowest-paid staff bear the brunt of layoffs in larger schooling.

“It all comes out to the theme of thinking about the budget first, and not people, which is very much in contrast with the brand that they build,” stated Jewel Tomasula, president of the Georgetown Alliance of Graduate Employees (GAGE) and a critic of Redeploy Georgetown. “Decisions are definitely made without consulting the people impacted.”

Employees — the equal of 100 full-time positions — have been recruited into the redeployment program primarily based on a number of elements, together with whether or not a person’s workload has been diminished by the pandemic, in accordance to college pointers. Many have been stunned to be referred to as again to campus and assigned tasks exterior of their everlasting positions, they stated.

One worker, who spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of she is afraid of shedding her job, stated her workload as a full-time staffer in one of many faculty’s tutorial departments has grown in current months, however she was nonetheless assigned new tasks, together with conducting temperature checks and imposing testing mandates as a public health screener.

The program “assumes that because I’m in a lower-level position, I don’t have as much work, but it’s the opposite,” stated the worker, who will divide her time between her everlasting position and her new place. “It’s a policy that makes it impossible to be there for students. I have significantly more work to do and it is more mentally and emotionally exhausting.”

Dubyak stated that in the end, it’s up to managers to decide which workers are redeployed, primarily based on departmental wants and whether or not work might be absorbed by different staff. About one-third of redeployed staff are doing digital work and about half have been given part-time hours of their new roles, Dubyak stated.

The college hosted city corridor conferences for workers — program coordinators and assistants and scholar advisers — within the days main up to the spring semester, however staff contend that campus directors made selections in regards to the new assignments with out their enter.

More than 200 individuals have signed an open letter calling on the college to finish the coverage they are saying was created “without adequate safeguards to ensure that excess burden is not placed on people with disabilities, women and those with dependent care responsibilities, people of lower socioeconomic status and staff of color within our community,” in accordance to the letter.

It just isn’t solely unusual to ask staff to take on new tasks, and organizations have spent a lot of the pandemic trying to find inventive methods to stretch their strained budgets.

“Some employers have re-juggled staff to do things during the pandemic in order to meet whatever their mission is and, in some respects, that is understandable as long as they’re not putting employees at risk,” stated Linda M. Correia, first vice chairman of the Board of the National Employment Lawyers Association and a civil rights lawyer.

But Correia stated the ultimatum Georgetown has offered to workers — take redeployment or unpaid leave — is considerably irregular.

“That seems a bit draconian,” Correia stated.

University officers stated hiring contractors to fill the new roles could lead on to deeper finances cuts, corresponding to layoffs, posing better challenges.

Redeploy Georgetown was designed to maintain the college’s workforce employed, whereas coping with the distinctive challenges of working throughout a pandemic, Dubyak stated in an e mail.

Redeployed workers will proceed to obtain their full wage and advantages with their reassignments, plus free meals, free parking, private protecting tools and twice-weekly coronavirus assessments. The college has labored to present lodging to workers with health considerations, Dubyak stated. Georgetown can be providing assets, corresponding to reductions on child-care facilities, to staff with youngsters at dwelling.

But there have been challenges. A Georgetown worker, who spoke on the situation of anonymity for concern of retribution, stated they’d to make repeated requests to get out of an project as a public health screener — a probably high-contact job that offered health considerations.

“I was told if they didn’t have a different position for me, I would have to take unpaid leave,” the worker stated. Staff positioned on unpaid leave lose health advantages and have to pay the price of their complete premium whereas out of labor. “It’s not really an option to go without health care during a pandemic.”

The college reassigned the worker.

Tomasula, who leads the union for graduate scholar instructing and analysis assistants, stated the difficulty is emblematic of the way in which the college treats junior-level workers. GAGE secured its first union contract with the college in May, which helped the group cut price for security protections.

Tomasula accused the college of exploiting staff who “don’t have a union backing and don’t have an organizational structure.”

“It’s kind of just taking advantage of that,” she stated.