“Feelings” vs. “facts”
As a faculty member at UVA since 1987 and supporter of classified employees for the last decade, I’d like to respond to Carol Wood’s letter [Mailbag, July 18] disparaging staff concerns about the impact of “restructuring” on their jobs [“Restructuring Arrives in July,” June 27]. Wood suggests not only that Jan Cornell, president of a union representing hundreds of UVA workers, has “no connection” to the University, but also that her comments to C-VILLE are based on “feelings” rather than “facts,” and that anyone skeptical of restructuring simply hasn’t been “paying attention.” Perhaps the problem is that some of us have paid attention too closely—closely enough to notice the discrepancy between what Wood rightly notes have been repeated claims that restructuring will help staff and President Casteen’s own admission in the UVA Alumni News (Spring 2005) that “classified workers, sad to say, will have distinctly limited opportunities to benefit [from the restructuring plan].” In keeping with this admission is the fact that wages, benefits, and personnel policies for low-wage hospital staff have all been adversely affected since the hospital went through a similar “restructuring” back in 1996. Wood says that UVA seeks staff input, yet what her letter actually demonstrates is the University’s dismissive attitude toward employee perspectives and concerns. Fortunately, C-VILLE helps to ensure that UVA staff as well as administrative views are aired.
Susan Fraiman, professor of English, UVA
Charlottesville
No connection? Not hardly.
In Carol Wood’s recent letter to the editor [Mailbag, July 18] she criticizes the author, John Borgmeyer, for using a source “with no connection to the University.” Having been a colleague of Ms. Cornell’s at UVA’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, I beg to differ. Jan worked at UVA for 12 years, chaired the Provost Level Employee Council, and is a retiree of the University. She is currently the president of the Staff Union at UVA. To say she
has no connection to the University is simply untrue.
Ms. Wood also asserts that Sara Wilson was here to meet with UVA employees on the topic of restructuring. While that statement is true to a point, she failed to include the fact that Ms. Wilson was an invited guest of the Provost’s Employee Council – invited to speak to the council itself rather than UVA employees in general. The chair of the council DID invite staffers to attend the meeting; unfortunately the room chosen could accommodate only 30 people total. Even with reservations, another staff member and I were greeted by two security guards at the front steps of Booker House. We were denied access to the meeting, and Booker House entirely, for showing up exactly one minute late.
UVA employees have reason to be concerned about the new system. We have not yet seen a plan for it; we don’t even know what benchmarks have been set. No committee of staff members has been convened to work with the administration on the plan’s development. Morale among our colleagues at the hospital has declined steeply since restructuring.
If the administration is serious about allaying employee concerns and creating a better HR system, they would be wise to include classified staff now. Commun-
ication with the University community should be frequent, and should include concrete information about benchmarks of the new system and its operations. We should be involved in the entire process, which should be transparent to everyone at UVA.
Lynda Myers
Batesville