Race in Campus Labor Practices

How can we not consider race when we consider any issue in this country? Race is so deeply embedded in the nation's (historical and contemporary) consciousness that there are no social movements that can authentically be said to be separate from it. Why is race an issue that simply can't be forgotten? Because we are surrounded everyday by the implications and consequences of its part in the construction of social, economic, and political power dynamics. Because the memory of past racial injustice and the sting of current racial prejudice is, after all, the feeling that lasts in the hearts of those who are discriminated against and oppressed. The impossibility of "forgetting" such a feeling is precisely what makes politics in general and progressive politics, in particular, so frustrating to a person of color who sees the topic of race in many progressive (and conservative) agendas being systematically and dismissively replaced in the discussion with talk of a "color-blind" society at a time when color is still very much an "issue".

What facets of Swarthmore College exemplify just such a superficial discussion on race? What contentious struggles result from the misunderstandings that arise out of the discourse surrounding it? Admissions decisions, faculty hiring, alumni gifts, curricular development, and staff issues are all arenas in which a more substantial discussion about race and diversity could be raised. Recent dialogue about the staff experience at this school seems to affirm for me the idea that issues of race, gender, class, and other aspects of identity are inextricably connected.

Discussion about labor here at Swarthmore, as elsewhere, seems at once very simple and complex. Writing as a person who is interested in labor issues but just beginning to develop a consciousness about labor and learn about the intricacies and dynamics of staff-non staff relationships, Swarthmore seems to epitomize the problematic workplace, full of complicated and intersecting issues. Swarthmore employees are not in a union; they express grievances about the treatment accorded and respect given them by administration, faculty, and students. The obvious need to address these issues in an open manner has resulted in a dialogue that has been sustained by staff with no widespread support from students. The notion that "labor practices" at Swarthmore exist in a glass bubble, unaware of and unresponsive to outside realities needs to be challenged in order for a truly inclusive and engaging conversation about the staff experience to occur and real improvement to be made.

When we discuss labor on this campus, we need to talk about its racial component. A great number of the workers with which students interact on a day-to day basis are African American. The dining hall workers, the workers at Essie Mae's, and the dorm housekeepers are the people who are most visible as workers because they are the ones that, as students, we cannot ignore because we eat and live where they work. The invisibility of workers to students is marked at this school; just as we need to support the staff in whatever way they decide to organize on many important issues ranging from reform of the position evaluation system and greater staff access to information and policy to changing grievance procedures and greater staff participation in decisions at the College, we also need to ask ourselves where our privilege as students at an elite, liberal arts college comes in and why we don't interact more with people we see everyday and are a part of our lives. It is difficult to try to be supportive of the workers on a personal level. I know for myself that I have had a hard time trying to forge with people I see daily a kind of relationship that refutes the sense that we, students, are all privileged, ungrateful kids. It is easier to support staff on an institutional level but most students do not even do that at this college.

A group of staff, students, and faculty drafted a letter to members of the Staffing Long Range Planning Committee expressing many concerns about how staff is valued and treated, concerns which, as students, we need to support whether by signing a letter and attending a meeting about staff issues (as occured twice in January and February) or rallying support from other students for effective and positive change. Having attended the meeting which occured on February 13th and which was overflowing with members of the staff, it was glaring to me that not only did all members of the Committee which was supposed to address staff concerns seem to be white but the overwhelming number of employees who were in the audience seemed to be as well. The absence of a strong representation of employees of color concerned me very much because it seemed to me to be indicative of the complicated labor situation at Swarthmore in which workers are not organized into a union, students and others in the community do not support the staff in substantial ways, workers cannot get organized because of the difficulty in uniting the many different divisions of staff, students are perceived in certain ways by staff and staff is perceived in certain ways by students, and workers themselves have many differences, some of which lie beneath the surface and hinge upon race.

Why don't we move to support staff? Why does staff representation seem so one-sided? Not only are people unwilling to help workers (the most visible of whom are African American) but some people do not seem to be invited into (or at least comfortable enough to be participating in) the discussion about labor practices; I see both failings to be connected with race. The topic of race is inexhaustible especially as it relates to so many other issues in American society yet we continue to talk superfically about it or throw up our hands in defeat and say that we talk about it too much and need to move "beyond" it. We cannot move "beyond" anything if race is the undercurrent beneath so much in this country. I don't know how to talk about race in real, honest ways but I believe that it won't occur if we fool ourselves into thinking it is not present in nearly everything that happens and in the dynamics of so many situations. Race is often tied to labor as it is on this campus. A person I was talking to about how to combat staff invisibility said "We students have got to stop thinking about staff as workers and start thinking about them as people who work here". I think that distinction is an important one to recognize but would also add that we need to start thinking about the dynamics of the workplace (in this case, Swarthmore College) and stop hoping to think about workers as people only, as people without color because society is not color-blind and it is unfair to dismiss the importance of race in the understanding of inequality in the workplace.

by Lena Sze

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