A mandatory custodial meeting and luncheon at 9 a.m. Friday in the Governors Room of Oklahoma Memorial Union was intended to express a continuing appreciation for what the custodians do, said Burr Millsap, associate vice president of Administrative Affairs.

As custodians finished their early lunches, Millsap and Nick Hathaway, vice president of Administrative Affairs, announced that the administration will be instituting a custodian and housekeeper of the month award. The recipients will receive a cash award and a day off of work.

Custodian Meeting



o At a mandatory custodian meeting Friday, Burr Millsap, associate vice president of Administrative Affairs asked custodial employees to confront him with their problems on the job.



o One custodian feels the meeting was an attempt to quiet the complaints of custodians.

Millsap then reiterated his open-door policy and encouraged custodians to confront him with any questions or issues they may have.

"I will give you thorough consideration and an honest answer," Millsap said. "We will work on the issues together and try to move forward and make this university the best it can be."

Jerry Wright, 44, who has worked as an OU custodian since June 1998, said that though the awards are a nice gesture, he doesn't think Millsap addressed any of the real issues.

"He threw us a bone, in the form of an employee-of-the-month sort of award," Wright said. "On the surface, it seems okay, a sort of recognition of our value, but in the end it's more like a bribe to [quiet us]."

The employee-of-the-month award is similar to a star-of-the-month award that used to be given to custodians who had been nominated by their fellow employees, according to Wright.

"It's just reinstating something we used to have that they took away. The cash bonus and day off are a positive thing, but they're really not addressing any of our issues," Wright said.

Wright, who cleans Gould Hall, said the meeting seemed more like a public relations ploy and did not address his primary concern: a lack of sufficient manpower to clean the buildings on campus.

"People were waiting for him to start addressing the issues that were raised in the article in the paper," Wright said.

In the Nov. 1 article in The Daily, custodians complained that 40,000 square feet of cleaning each day is too much.

Michelle Phipps, 46, owner of a commercial and residential cleaning company called Maid in the U.S.A., said she feels it is impossible for OU custodians to clean such a large area.

Phipps, who enjoys her job cleaning the commons area of an OU fraternity, said she plans to employ a staff of five to six people this spring when contracted to clean a three-story, 40,000-square-foot hotel that is being built between 12th and 27th Streets on I-35 in Moore.

Efficient cleaning would not be possible if she were asked to personally clean such an area in an eight-hour day, Phipps said.

"Especially if [custodians] have areas that have to be cleaned, sanitized and sterilized, I cannot imagine that they would be able to do that efficiently in that amount of time," Phipps said.

Phipps, who usually charges $35 to $40 to clean a 2,000-square-foot house in 2 1/2 hours, said 40,000 square feet per day is the equivalent of cleaning 20 2,000-square-foot houses in eight hours.

"That means you have to clean 2 1/2 houses per hour," she said. "Most people don't understand what these custodians go through unless you break it down."

Issues with the workloads impressed upon custodians are being raised at other universities.

The Daily Texan, the University of Texas' newspaper, published a letter from custodians in August of 2000. The letter covered custodians' issues with a team-cleaning concept, which uses a computer system to calculate the amount of time needed to complete each task. UT custodians described the concept as "an insulting practice in which workers are given two minutes to clean a toilet, 30 seconds to clean a sink, three minutes to vacuum a floor, etc."

According to UT's physical plant Web site, custodians now follow a "Zone Focus" cleaning concept, which assigns custodians to specific zone groups. Through this plan, a custodial staff of 183 cleans 109 buildings consisting of 10,558,855 square feet, which breaks down to 57,698 square feet per custodian.

Wright said the alienation between management and staff has made it harder to raise the real issue: insufficient manpower.

"I think increasing our staff would solve a great number of our problems," he said.

Custodians, especially those who have worked long enough to witness the square-footage increase, know they are being asked to clean more than is possible, Wright said.

But another one of his issues, Wright said, is with the way breaks are implemented by management.

Custodians received the new break schedule Nov. 3, 2003. The schedule has "No Leniency" and "No Exceptions" printed in bold across the top. The work day is broken up by two 20-minute breaks and a 30-minute lunch.

Wright said his issue is with the break at 7:30 a.m., which falls in the middle of his busiest time of day.

"We have to neglect our work to take a break at that time or not take a break to get our work done," Wright said.

The bottom of the break schedule handout reads, "If you feel you are unable to break at the time listed above you must forfeit your break. Breaks are a privilege only allowed if expected job duties are completed. You cannot change your break time!"

The breaks, which are mandated by law, become a problem when the custodians were forced to take them at that time, Wright said.

Though the break schedule may look good on paper, it is an example of the way Vicki Shoecraft, managerial associate, approaches her management, he said.

"The break schedule is symptomatic of the way management is being handled. We are talking to people who aren't listening to us. We have people that have no idea, no clue of what our job is like," Wright said.

Wright said he was once part of a group that met with a few managers to establish a dialogue. Whether or not anything was solved by it, he said it made custodians feel like someone was listening.

A month ago, Wright said he spoke to his manager, Christine Fleming, about establishing a group meeting with managers, but nothing happened.

"The open-door policy doesn't work as well because people are more intimidated on an individual basis," Wright said. "There's a reason that people are reluctant to talk about this."

Millsap said luncheons, which occur at least once a year, are to encourage communication and reward custodians for good overall work performance. He said custodians know he is available to discuss their concerns.

Wright said the impression and general feeling custodians have received is that administration not only won't listen if they raise concerns, but that they will watch the custodians' work more closely.
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