NBC Connecticut
Greene.
Dorothy Greene told the mayor that she fears she’ll lose her job — and her home — if a private company becomes her boss at Wilbur Cross High School. The mayor’s response: These are tough times requiring tough choices.
That conversation took place Tuesday at Bru Cafe on Orange Street. It didn’t involve yelling or accusations or posturing.
Rather, the mayor sat down with a coffee for a civil face-to-face chat over coffee with two custodians to discuss a privatization proposal that has otherwise sparked protests and recriminations at the bargaining table, where the matter has gone to binding arbitration.
The discussion was the latest in a series of “New Haven’s Talking” discussions produced jointly by the Independent and NBC Connecticut Channel 30. The series builds on news stories, like coverage of the no-confidence vote, that have generated discussion in the Independent. Some of the key actors come to Bru to discuss the issue further and respond to some of the posted reader comments. Channel 30’s cameras roll; then an edited version of the debate airs on Channel 30.
Click on the play arrow at the top of the story to watch NBC’s one-minute-38-second story the debate, filmed by cameramen Dan Lee and Daryl Vallez. Click on the play arrow here for a longer version.
Dorothy Greene, it turns out, had met John DeStefano once before, 18 years ago. She used to run a restaurant. She remembered catering an event at then-candidate DeStefano’s headquarters.
Today Greene makes $38,620 a year cleaning Wilbur Cross.
Amid a budget crisis (with estimated annual structural deficits of $50 million or more), the city seeks to turn over management of school custodians from the Board of Education to a private company. Mayor John DeStefano estimates that that would cut the annual cost of cleaning schools from $15 million to $7 million.
A union-commissioned study concluded that those savings would come from cutting the average wage to $12.50 an hour and cutting custodians’ hours so they no longer qualify for health benefits. The city’s 176 custodians currently earn an estimated average of $20.90 an hour.
Those cuts scare Greene, she told the mayor Tuesday.
“I’m afraid I’m going to be one of the people you read about in the paper who lose their home and have to get public assistance .. and not get any health care,” Green said. “My husband has not worked [full-time] in three years … I’m worried that I’m not going to have a job at all …
“It’s almost like a class structure. It’s like the haves and the have-nots. It feels like to me that the blue collar worker doesn’t matter any more.”
DeStefano acknowledged that city workers, like their counterparts in the private sector, are facing layoffs and tough times and requests for givebacks.
The “fundamental” issue, he said, is: “How do you run the place [the city]” when there’s no more money to spend, and people already struggling to stay in their homes can’t afford any more tax increases?
“Your reality is going to be your job. My reality is a concern for 130,000 people who demand and expect that certain things be done for them. They’re feeling very stressed,” he told Greene.
Robert Montuori, who heads the custodians union, participated in the discussion, too. While he and DeStefano disagreed on privatization, they found some areas of agreement. For instance, Montuori said his union agrees that work rules should change so that managers can switch custodians to a different building when they’ve finished work at one location. He agreed with DeStefano that custodians, like teachers, should be evaluated more closely and fired if they’re doing a bad job.
“In my opinion the taxpayer pays for the very best. We should give them the very best,” Montuori said.
DeStefano praised the union for making constructive proposals at the bargaining table.
“I’m prepared to tell my bargaining unit we have to pay a toll. I can only pay the toll for our bargaining unit. I cannot pay for everybody else,” Monturoi said, referring to the mayor’s quest for health care and pension givebacks from 11 city unions. “I agree he [DeStefano] has a problem. But I can only give you what I can give you. We do not have the resources to end this problem.”
“There is no money. There is no money in the budget. It is a problem. Something here has got to give,” DeStefano told him.
The custodians were asked about a comment posted on the Independent by “For Real.” It argued that custodians do work valued at minimum wage in the marketplace, so they shouldn’t expect taxpayers to support “inflated wages.” “It’s not rocket science,” the reader wrote. “Mopping floors, wiping blackboards, emptying trash — it’s unskilled labor … Why do I have to pay for the average custodian to make $21 [an hour]? If that is your profession, sorry, there is going to be a limit to what kind of salary you command.”
A custodian’s work is not “unskilled labor,” Greene responded.
“You need to know how to handle chemicals, health standards, safety standards … I think people are under the impression that you just wipe a towel … [You need] good judgment skills [and to] be able to multitask.
“It’s like having Waterford crystal in your house and having bone china. You’re showing all of your family and your friends your Waterford crystal and your bone china. Then they need to go the rest room. They have no toilet tissue. Which becomes more important then? The Waterford crystal?”
Previous episodes of “New Haven’s Talking”:
• New Haven’s Talking About Policing
• New Haven’s Talking Rain