The administration has begun to discuss directly employing more workers to replace subcontracted workers at ongoing collective bargaining negotiations with the Service Employees International Union in order to level the wages of all custodians working here.The discussions with SEIU, which represents the University's directly-employed workers, come as a result of the Brandeis Labor Coalition's campaign to raise the hourly wages of subcontracted custodial workers to the same rate as directly-employed workers.

Those workers staff positions in an unpopular overnight shift created in the late-1990s that the University's employees have declined to fill. There are now 80 such unionized direct-contract workers who receive $14.20 per hour, and 20 workers subcontracted through Hurley of America who receive $11.35 per hour, according to Chief Operating Officer Peter French.

French has acknowledged the wage disparity and said he hoped to work towards an agreement through collective bargaining negotiations.

"We certainly understand the issue," he said. "We will entertain the proposal [the union] puts on and we want to talk to them about it. We are going to approach this in good faith, as we have done in the past."

Brandeis directly employs 60 SEIU custodians under a contract set to expire in July. Twenty additional custodians work under a broader contract negotiated between the SEIU and nearly 100 businesses and organizations in the greater Boston area.

Assistant Vice President for University Services Mark Collins said the University has offered opportunities to contracted workers to fill in-house vacancies. About 20 workers have filled those positions in the past five years, he said.

"[Contracted custodians] are great workers and if we can transition them on to our staff...we're interested in helping out to do that," he said. "It's a win-win for both of us,"

The Brandeis Labor Coalition posted flyers ubiquitously around campus and lobbied the Union Senate to pass a resolution supporting their efforts.

The group recently collaborated with Prof. Jacqueline Jones (HIST) to gather faculty signatures for a petition urging the administration to "live up to its commitment to social justice and fairness by bringing subcontracted workers up to the standard of compensation set for direct employees." A copy of the petition and the names of its cosigners were printed in an advertisement in last week's issue of the Justice, which was paid for by Jones and Prof. Silvia Arrom (HIST).

Jones said that the people she contacted about the issue were "very supportive and very enthusiastic" about the campaign.

"We just wanted to add our voice of support in a very straightforward way," she said.