Melissa Bailey Photo
Desmond Wilkes, unemployed since October, makes his pitch.
The jobs have no benefits, are part-time and pay less than union jobs they’re replacing. That didn’t stop 40 out-of-work New Haveners — some approaching the 100th-week cancellation of unemployment checks — from lining up for a chance to land one of 165 positions cleaning city schools.
The job-seekers showed up at the cafeteria of the Hill Regional Career High School Tuesday afternoon for a job fair held by GCA Services Group, Inc., the Cleveland-based company that’s lining up to take over cleaning services at a half-dozen city schools.
“I’ll work about anywhere if it’s paying money,” said Desmond Wilkes (pictured), an expectant father who got laid off at a factory in October. “It’s about surviving.”
Brian Roccapriore, who runs the job readiness program STRIVE-New Haven, said most of the people he’ll be referring for those jobs are the long-term unemployed.
“They’re the 99ers,” not to be confused with the “99 percent,” Roccopriore said. That means they’ve been on unemployment compensation for the maximum of 99 weeks and risk seeing an end to their income.
The fair comes in the wake of a decision handed down in November by a panel of arbitrators determining the fate of the 150 unionized custodians who clean city schools. The arbitrators’ award settled a long-standing dispute between management and AFSCME Council 4 Local 287 over privatizing jobs.
The decision allows the school district to privatize one third of its custodial workforce. That eliminates the union’s presence in 11 of 51 school buildings that were in dispute. The district already outsources cleaning services at all leased buildings, including its headquarters at 54 Meadow St.
According to the new deal, the city will shrink its unionized custodial workforce from about 150 to 130 by Dec. 31 and to 100 by July 1. The city has offered buy-out packages to entice custodians to leave.
So far it looks like enough workers will choose to leave so the city won’t have to lay anyone off before the end of the year, said Mayor John DeStefano.
Now the district is negotiating with GCA on a contract to clean those 11 buildings: Career High, Wilbur Cross High School, James Hillhouse High and its Field House, Hill Central Music Academy (once the new building is built), King/Robinson, Polly McCabe, four of five buildings at the Sound School.
GCA plans to hire 65 part-time employees to start work on Jan. 1 and another 100 by July 1, said GCA Senior Sales Director Christopher Jones (pictured).
The jobs will pay $14.67 per hour for 20 hours per week, he said. Unlike the Local 287 jobs, they carry no health or retirement benefits or the job security provided by a union contract.
While the city can’t prohibit out-of-towners from applying, DeStefano (at left in photo) said, “our priority will be to give New Haven residents these jobs.” Of the 45 job-seekers who showed up to the fair, 40 were from New Haven, according to Jones.
DeStefano said the city is working with local groups like STRIVE to direct New Haven job-seekers to the job fairs. A second job fair will be held Thursday from 4 to 7 p.m. at the cafeteria at Hill Regional Career High at 140 Legion Ave.
The new jobs come at the demise of full-time jobs with benefits, pointed out Larry Dorman, spokesman for AFSCME Council 4, in a statement after the press event.
“We should remember that these are not new jobs,” Dorman said. “While it’s important to hire local workers, the students and the people of New Haven deserve better than just any job. The Mayor and the private contractor must demonstrate a real commitment to creating the same kind of family supporting jobs formerly held by experienced workers. Filling custodial jobs should not pit neighbor against neighbor and continue the cycle towards poverty. There are questions here and the process should not be rushed through to the detriment of students and the community.”
GCA’s Jones said his company has contracts to clean 150 school districts nationwide as well as some universities, including UConn. He said some workers have chosen to form unions and “we have no issue with that.”
All the workers who clean city buildings where the work has already been privatized — such as City Hall — belong to a union, 32BJ, said DeStefano. 32BJ spokeswoman Maia Davis said her union is focused on its contract fight and has not made moves to unionize the future workforce in New Haven Public Schools.
Roccapriore, DeStefano and Jones made their remarks at a press event at 3 p.m., an hour before the job fair began. The presser and job fair came while the city still doesn’t have a contract with GCA. The district is negotiating a contract for Jan. 1 to June 1, 2012, according to schools Chief Operating Officer Will Clark. He said the contract needs approval from the school board, which will likely hold a special meeting next week to approve it.
The company landed the gig through a competitive bidding process: The city sent out a request for proposals in December of 2009 seeking bids for an outside company to take over cleaning the schools. Eight bids came in; GCA emerged as the preferred bidder. GCA’s bid called for paying workers $12.50 per hour instead of $17, the going rate for most custodians in Local 287 at that time.
At the time, DeStefano declared GCA’s $8 million bid would save the city $7 million annually if the jobs were privatized wholesale. Those savings dropped when aldermen subsequently passed a bill boosting the living wage for city contractors from $12.50 to $14.67 per hour. The savings further diminished when the city, through binding arbitration, ended up with a “hybrid” model that only partially privatized the custodial workforce.
The current city budget estimated $4 million in savings for school custodial services. That won’t happen this year, but the city should see about $4 million in savings per year going forward, said COO Clark. The contract is still under negotiation, but Clark said it should total less than $4 million per year.
GCA’s Jones said the savings will come due to the lower wages and the “flexibility of the workforce.”
8 Weeks To Go
Lera Wilson said she’s ready to be part of that workforce. A single mom with two grown kids on the East Shore’s Townsend Avenue, she was one of the first applicants to walk in the door Tuesday. She came half an hour early with her paperwork already filled out.
Wilson, who’s in her late 40s, is about to be one of those 99ers Roccapriore was talking about. She has eight weeks to find another job before her unemployment runs out.
After putting in 20 years at UPS from ages 18 to 38, she has bounced around between jobs. She was a manager for a Krispy Kreme store until the store “went under” in 2008. Then she trained to be a certified nurse’s assistant. She found work as a CNA in Guilford until last year.
“My patient passed away and there wasn’t anyone left,” Wilson explained, so she got laid off.
“I need to find a new career.”
Wilson said her 24-year-old son, an engineer, has been supporting the family. Lately, Wilson has been taking classes at City Hall’s Construction Workforce Initiative, which trains New Haveners for jobs in construction. The program coordinator, Nichole Jefferson, sent Wilson and a crew of other trainees to Tuesday’s job fair.
That group included John Harrell, who lives over the Hamden border. The 34-year-old said he’s been unemployed for five months. After his interview, he waited at a table for his mom — who was also applying for a job.
Wilkes (pictured at the top of this story) has been out of work since his layoff from a job as a machine operator at New Haven’s Uretek.
Wilkes said he needs to land a job before his third child is born. The baby’s due Feb. 13.
“I know how to buff, clean windows,” he said, ticking off his credentials as he awaited his interview. “I know how to clean the bathroom, too.”
Meanwhile, Lera Wilson sat down at a table for a short interview with Tony Massenburg of GCA. She came away optimistic — she said she was asked to check back with the employer on Dec. 29.
Wilson said she’s up for the new opportunity.
“I’m not picky,” Wilson said. “At this point, I’ll do anything.”