Security officers make their case to students
by Sarah
R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff
tudents moving back into residence halls early
this week and their accompanying parents were greeted by warnings
regarding the future of student safety on campus. In response to
the elimination of their department during budget cuts, non-police
security officers passed out and posted flyers that forecasted a
decrease in student safety should the officers be laid off as scheduled.
More than 5,000 bright-yellow
pages, marked "Safety Alert," were distributed by the
group, according to David J. Kellogg, institutional security officer
II.
Kellogg said students
and parents expressed surprise that he and 18 security colleagues
are being laid off. Local newspapers reported students and parents
are concerned.
The layoffs are designed
to save the University more than $550,000 annually, according to
Javier Cevallos, vice chancellor for Student Affairs and Campus
Life, and are part of a larger budget-reducing plan that involves
95 layoffs to date.
The laid-off security
force provides transportation escorts for students, patrols buildings
and parking lots at night, responds to campus emergencies, registers
bicycles, watches prisoners arrested on campus while they are held
in the Amherst jail, and provides crowd and traffic control.
Kellogg, who is a chief
steward with American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees Local 1776, said the union and the laid-off officers are
waiting to see whether and how the University plans to continue
each of the services. As the Chronicle went to press, laid-off employees
were meeting with Barbara O'Connor, acting director of Public Safety,
to learn how her department plans to cover the campus's safety needs
and to inquire about alternative cost-saving measures, according
to Kellogg.
"All of these things
need to be clarified for us as a union," he said. "We're
not sure which "duties" are going to continue [to get
done].
"We have a contract;
the contract should be followed." If work that had been done
by union members before they were laid off is to be covered by non-unit
people, AFSCME will want to know, he said.
News Office director
Barbara Pitoniak said the campus intends to continue to provide
intra-campus transportation services for students and is looking
into other ways to do so.
Kellogg said he and
his colleagues plan to circulate a petition protesting the closing
of his department. Based on seniority, approximately half of the
non-Police security officers are scheduled to be laid off Feb. 16.
The others are scheduled for March 16.
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