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Housekeeping

Dining Service

College adapts to labor shortage, rising inflation rate

Despite an ahead-of-schedule, non-student worker minimum wage increase to $17 per hour in response to national labor shortage, the College continues to suffer staffing shortages. Dining Services Interim Director Ken Cardone estimates that his department has around twenty to twenty-five open “casual positions,” defined by the College as non-student employees that work fewer than twenty hours per week.

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Housekeeping

A first year’s perspective on living wage victory

On October 21, Bowdoin students, employees and the broader community awoke to a surprising announcement that Bowdoin would be increasing wages for benefits-eligible hourly workers. Indeed, this was great news and a fantastic step towards achieving a better workplace for all Bowdoin employees, but President Clayton Rose’s refusal to acknowledge the powerful worker and student activism is both troubling and, sadly, expected.

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Letter to the Editor

Housekeeper speaks out

To the Editor, I would like to thank everyone for all your support for a living wage. I feel it was a little weird for President Rose to announce our wage increase right before “the fall social” and “parent weekend.” Now with my increase, my pay in July, as I understand it, will be a little more than $2.00 more than someone starting new.

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Housekeeping

A win for Bowdoin’s workers? Campus reacts to wage hike

The College will spend an additional $1.6 million annually to increase wages for benefits-eligible hourly employees beginning July 2022. As President Clayton Rose announced in an email to the campus community on Monday, this will cover both an increase in wages for workers who currently make less than $17 an hour, which will be the College’s new minimum starting wage for hourly benefits-eligible employees, up from the current starting wage of $12.65.

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Editorial

The right thing to do

If all goes to plan, by July 1, 2022, Bowdoin’s minimum starting wage for hourly employees will increase to $17.00 an hour, and existing employees will receive raises to compensate for the effects of wage compression.

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Housekeeping

BSG delays vote on statement of support for housekeepers

Following a contentious debate, the Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) decided to delay a vote to ratify a statement supporting housekeepers until the upcoming Wednesday meeting on October 23. The meeting began with public comment time, which led to a wide-ranging discussion of the proposal and labor issues at the College that lasted the duration of the meeting.

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Housekeeping

Misclassified workers show why Bowdoin has to do better

This past year, the Bowdoin Labor Alliance (BLA) exposed the vast distance between low-wage workers at the College and an administration indifferent to their needs. Leadership at the College prioritizes the financial bottom line over its obligation to our community members, even when we, as a wealthy liberal arts college and “non-profit,” have the luxury of making financial decisions that reflect our core values.

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Housekeeping

Dear Matt Orlando: the College has the money

After months of conversations with workers to formulate Bowdoin Labor Alliance (BLA) demands, and Orient reporting on Bowdoin’s compensation program, we lament that only public pressure could generate a response from the College. We are deeply troubled by the College’s effort to mischaracterize student and worker demands, malign the Orient’s reporting, reject Maine Department of Labor standards and silence workers’ voices.

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Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor: Bowdoin’s treasurer on housekeeper wages

To the editor, We have been concerned about misperceptions and incorrect or incomplete information published here, and circulating elsewhere, about Bowdoin’s compensation program for our housekeepers. I want to take the opportunity to set the record straight about our compensation, the importance we place on this issue, and our substantial, ongoing efforts to make sure our housekeepers are compensated appropriately.

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Editorial

Whose Common Good?

The College knows that members of Bowdoin’s house- and groundskeeping staff regularly struggle to make ends meet, as we reported this week in the Orient. In addition, the Orient has learned that workers in dining make similarly low wages.

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Editorial

Leave tampons alone

As part of the Free Flow project to make tampons and pads accessible to the Bowdoin community, Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) is sponsoring free dispensers in several women’s, men’s and gender-neutral restrooms. Since the dispensers and trash receptacles were installed over break, tampons from the containers in the men’s bathroom have been found in the trash over 10 times.

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