In a recent article in the Daily Texan, UT Vice President Kevin Hegarty admitted that staff and faculty in the College of Education were generally dissatisfied with the Shared Services pilot, and that the college had asked the Central Business Office to suspend it for the time being. Services dropped to unacceptable levels.
What does it say about Shared Services when even Kevin Hegarty has to admit it is not going well? TSEU members have been pointing out the flaws with the proposed system since it was first announced. UT administrators would have done better to listen to the voices of front-line staff from the very beginning before beginning a program that would displace employees and hurt campus services.
Hegarty goes on to claim that all of the employees who have been displaced by the Shared Services pilot have been able to find a new position within the Central Business Office or elsewhere on campus, but he fails to mention that it can mean being offered a position at a salary of $6,000 – $10,000 less per year, in a city that is unaffordable for most of us already.
TSEU members lead the fight to show the true face of privatization and consolidation plans like Shared Services by organizing our coworkers into the union, meeting with elected officials and campus administrators, collecting petition signatures, speaking out at rallies and forums. Because of the efforts of union members at UT, we aren’t finding out that Shared Services is a failure after there is already a $65 million dollar contract with Accenture, and a call center! Because of the efforts of union members, the deal with Accenture was ended last Spring and the rollout of Shared Services was scaled back dramatically to a few pilots around campus.
We have had enough of bad plans to “fix” UT’s budget problem. Plans that involve firing staff, adjunctifying the University, squeezing money out of students, and forcing graduate students into further debt are not the right direction for our university. UT’s budget problem isn’t a question of money, it’s a question of priorities. For UT to truly be a world-class university, the needs of our campus community must be the priority. That means a living wage and job security for faculty and staff, as well as affordable tuition rates for students.
WHAT TO DO NOW!
Share this with your co-workers! Ask them why things get a little tighter every year, even though UT just raised over $3 billion in a capital campaign. Where does all the money go?
We need a living wage for all UT employees, a re-staffing of departments and colleges, affordable tuition, and no more corporate plans that squeeze even more out of fewer workers at our university!
TSEU members are circulating a petition to call on UT administrators to implement a living wage at UT along with ending attempts to consolidate and eliminate jobs.
Sign the petition at the SaveOurUT website or DOWNLOAD a copy of the petition.
For more information contact the Austin, TSEU office at 512.448.4225