Although university administrators pledged to take steps to improve workplace conditions for staff members — including offering more English as a Second Language and computer skills classes — activists say they have seen little progress the last few months.
This past September, a Human Resources Working Group submitted a 62-page report addressing allegations of workplace abuse that arose in several university departments last year. The committee made several recommendations to address these issues; however, six months after the report’s release, the university’s ESOL classes have not been updated and no computer classes have been implemented.
Human Resources Director Dale Anderson said university officials are currently working to “focus” the ESOL classes and develop a curriculum for the computer courses, which he said will most likely begin sometime after spring break.
However, Solomon Comissiong — the president of the Black Faculty and Staff Association — said he is not willing to wait for the university to take action and has developed his own committee of five volunteers to begin teaching computer programs to university employees within the next few weeks.
Comissiong said he spoke with at least nine Hispanic workers last week who said they had not been notified when the new ESOL or computer classes will begin. Many of the workers, he said, are eager to learn the skills.
“Last week I spoke with an Afro-Cuban housekeeper who was very adamant that if and when she is notified of these classes actually being offered, she said that she wants to take advantage of them to have an opportunity to become [promotable],” he said.
Comissiong noted he plans to add three to five more members to his committee, adding he would consider scaling back if and when administrators follow through on their promise.
“If I’m pleasantly surprised that a mass memorandum is physically distributed into the hands of employees saying that computer and ESOL courses are offered during work hours and are offered to everyone without penalty to attend, then it will be easy to pull back our committee,” Comissiong said. “Until we see something tangible, all of these problems will persist.”
Anderson said officials are working to expand course offerings for employees.
The university currently offers two elementary and two intermediate ESOL classes, Anderson said, because officials have only started to offer the classes to employees within the last few years — the program was discontinued six years ago — it will take time before they figure out the best means to improve them.
“As time goes on we will get an opportunity [to make improvements],” Anderson said. “We are now in a position that we are following the programs and we are determining how effective each of the programs are and what needs to be done to make them more effective. We are going to try to focus the [ESOL] classes with many of the workplace examples that can make [workers] more effective, faster and quicker.”
He added the computer courses are nearly ready to be implemented.
“I can say we have developed the “criteria” for the basic computer literacy and development class. It will cover everything from learning how to turn on a computer to learning how to look up records,” he said. “We know who these people are and we will be contacting them.”
In response to the alleged abuse by managers, Anderson said administrators are “committed to changing the culture” of work environments on campus.
“I will take action immediately if [employees] come to me,” Anderson said. “If they feel like they are not getting a fair hearing within their organization, they can feel that they can come to me or talk directly to [Facilities Management Director] Carlo Colella — he is anxious to hear from employees and will absolutely assure them of no reprisals.”
Comissiong said while Anderson’s stance is a good start, he has yet to see evidence that anything will be done to address specific problems. He added Anderson met with two Hispanic employees and an interpreter several months ago to discuss issues in the workplace and said one of those employees continues to face those issues.
“I’d be the first one patting the university on the back if they had fixed this,” Comissiong said. “The longer this back and forth about what is offered and what is not goes on, it looks like someone [within the university] is not telling us the truth.”
sinclair@umdbk.com
