2008 Woodie Awards
A gap in benefits?
Education benefits program allowing free and reduced tuition for employees and families does not apply to Mac's unionized employees
By: Michael Barnes
Issue date: 4/28/06 Section: News
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They clean the floors of dorms and campus facilities, they replace the broken knobs on doors, and when more than 400 graduating seniors arrive with their parents and extended family to celebrate commencement on May 13, they will have arrived hours earlier, at 6:30 a.m. to check for rain and plant signs directing visitors to the Old Main lawn.
They are the hourly staff of Macalester, members of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), Local 70, and they do the jobs that many of their superiors, and most of the student body, wouldn't want to.
When the seniors walk across the platform that the union staff helped erect, the graduates will have obtained the one thing that eludes many of the union employees at Macalester: a college education.
What is more, a key benefit provided to most other staff at Macalester, but not included in the union contracts, will make it more difficult for the children of union employees to attain a college education.
The Dependent Tuition Assistance Program (DTAP) provides non-union staff an opportunity to send their children to Macalester and nearby colleges for significantly reduced tuition costs, as long as they are admitted.
It is easy to divide the staff at Macalester between non-union employees, mostly salaried staff, and union employees, hourly, wage-earning staff including custodians, maintenance staff and engineers, among others. Security and Caf'¿½ Mac staff are contracted employees who work for private corporations.
Macalester has about 450 people working on staff, though many of those are less than full-time equivalent (FTE), according to Chuck Standfuss, former director of Human Resources. Of that total, there are 60 staff working under a union contract, all of whom work 40 hours a week, Standfuss said.
Standfuss, who has taken time off as director of Human Resources to lead the implementation of Macalester's new administrative software platform, plans to return to the job, and still serves as the chief union negotiator for the college. As part of the responsibility, he will begin the process of renegotiating the college's current three-year contract with the IUOE, which expires next spring.
They are the hourly staff of Macalester, members of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), Local 70, and they do the jobs that many of their superiors, and most of the student body, wouldn't want to.
When the seniors walk across the platform that the union staff helped erect, the graduates will have obtained the one thing that eludes many of the union employees at Macalester: a college education.
What is more, a key benefit provided to most other staff at Macalester, but not included in the union contracts, will make it more difficult for the children of union employees to attain a college education.
The Dependent Tuition Assistance Program (DTAP) provides non-union staff an opportunity to send their children to Macalester and nearby colleges for significantly reduced tuition costs, as long as they are admitted.
It is easy to divide the staff at Macalester between non-union employees, mostly salaried staff, and union employees, hourly, wage-earning staff including custodians, maintenance staff and engineers, among others. Security and Caf'¿½ Mac staff are contracted employees who work for private corporations.
Macalester has about 450 people working on staff, though many of those are less than full-time equivalent (FTE), according to Chuck Standfuss, former director of Human Resources. Of that total, there are 60 staff working under a union contract, all of whom work 40 hours a week, Standfuss said.
Standfuss, who has taken time off as director of Human Resources to lead the implementation of Macalester's new administrative software platform, plans to return to the job, and still serves as the chief union negotiator for the college. As part of the responsibility, he will begin the process of renegotiating the college's current three-year contract with the IUOE, which expires next spring.
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