Kewaskum School Staff Not Happy With Custodial Staff
Do you know what’s great about this?
Concerns about the Kewaskum School District’s decision to outsource cleaning services for the community’s schools about a year and a half ago resurfaced when the School Board met Monday night.
About 80 teachers and staff are estimated to have attended the meeting, where the members of the Kewaskum Auxiliary Personnel asked the board to revisit the subject.
Among those at the meeting were Steve Backhaus, lead custodian at Kewaskum Middle School.
Backhaus said members of the auxiliary decided to make a statement at Monday night’s meeting because a letter sent to the School Board and district administration in October about quality, safety, and other concerns related to the subcontracted custodial services was ignored.
The seven-page letter identified “concerns relating to the quality of services provided by the subcontractor and the condition of equipment used by the subcontractor.”
“We don’t mean to belittle the people who do the work,” Backhaus said. “It’s just not getting done right or it’s not done at all.”
If the services truly are that poor, they can fire the service and get another one. Somehow, though, I’m a bit skeptical that it’s that bad.
Wow, thanks for that insight Owen! Don’t bother to get any facts on your own, just leave it at “Somehow, though, I’m a bit skeptical that it’s that bad.”
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 11, 2010 at 1442 hrs
if corporate McDonalds goes in to Galactic McD’s and
see’s it’s a disaster, who is responsible? the manager, maybe?
In the military, if a unit is a bunch of ragamuffins during an
inspection, who is responsible? the commander, maybe?
- - but in a school, when it is ‘a mess’, union teachers need to
vent about the mess, and bitch about the non-union staff? who
should be ultimately responsible? maybe the principals?
- - - -
I don’t believe the teacher’s in Kewaskum have gone through the
logic, being that they should be calling out the principals, and thus
I AM SKEPTICAL. I believe this is more union bullshit.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 11, 2010 at 1457 hrs
Sure, you can hire cleaning people for cheap, particularly if you don’t care if it is legal to employ them, but custodial staff was traditionally the maintenance staff. Hiring your own maintenance tends to be cheaper than outsourcing it to competent organizations.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 11, 2010 at 1920 hrs
I’d like to see what sort of notice the janitorial company has been given (if any) about the concerns. If they have been informed and have not improved, fire them. If not (which more times then not is the case), lay out the issues and give them a chance to make it right. I do not see this in the artcle above.
Disclaimer: I work in Sourcing/Purchasing, and janitorial is probably the #1 complained about service we work with. 98% of issues can be solved by actually informing the service of the issues. Real easy to complain to the boss/board, but they seem to have an issue of actually working with the company to get things right.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 12, 2010 at 0953 hrs
Free, I think you’re right about maintenance staff - and traditionally the two may have been the same, but that doesn’t mean it still makes sense today. I would guess the maintenance staff would actually very much prefer spending their time fixing things than sweeping & cleaning bathrooms. We don’t have teachers doing those things - their time is better utilized teaching. Why should maintenance staff be any different?
And I better throw out a disclaimer, lest I offend. Saying some work requires less skill than others, is less important or should be compensated less has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the person doing the work.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 12, 2010 at 1001 hrs
I fix “small” stuff in my school - No elevators. Than it gets done rather than prioritized and delegated.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 12, 2010 at 1200 hrs
I’m with Owen here. I suspect much of the complaining is just the union way of saying that they want some $28/hour janitors with full pensions rather than private entry level workers.
I work for city government. When we get contractors to do service, they always work fast and get the job done. When we need a new outlet, they send city people who take literally 3 weeks to get the job done after waiting 5 months to get started (actually, 3 weeks and counting…).
I fix “small” stuff in my school - No elevators. Than it gets done rather than prioritized and delegated.
Well said Penterman… I should have just done it myself…. but there would be hell to pay if I got caught. Save money by showing initiative? HOW DARE YOU SIR!
particularly if you don’t care if it is legal to employ them,
Kind of a tired stereotype, isn’t it? Bring on work visas! We need more folks in this nation who come to work. We should offer two for one trades… send us two people with a good work ethic, and we’ll give you one back without.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 12, 2010 at 1247 hrs
TFG,
I strongly support allowing more immigrants to come to this country to work. The anti-immigration folks are more likely to be from the right, though there are plenty on the left as well.
No, it’s not a stereotype. There are a large number of cleaning services companies that have been caught making their money by hiring foreign nationals without work permits. Unfortunately, the law is quite lenient on those companies.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 12, 2010 at 1412 hrs
Actually, it is a stereotype unless you have some proof that this company has been hiring illegal immigrant.
btw, I doubt you’ll find too many conservatives who are against immigration. Illegal immigration is another thing altogether. We should allow work Visas, definitely. Perhaps we should even increase our immigration quotas. Neither of those things mean that those who disagree with our policies and laws should simple come here illegally. That causes all sorts of problems, both for society and for the illegal immigrant… though given the choice, I’d sometimes prefer legalizing the immigrant and dumping some lazy ‘can’t help myself” americans across the border into Mexico. That might get their attention.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 12, 2010 at 1534 hrs
Sure, you can hire cleaning people for cheap, particularly if you don’t care if it is legal to employ them, but custodial staff was traditionally the maintenance staff. Hiring your own maintenance tends to be cheaper than outsourcing it to competent organizations.
Being that I own apartment buildings and have done things both ways, I can tell you that this is an outright lie. Non-payrolled maintenance people have in my experience been far-far more accountable, because they are easier to get rid of, and there is always someone els there to take up the slack. Furthermore, these companies (and handymen) rely on good references from previous contracts, and are more often than not happy to do whatever they can to make any disputes right.
In the situation of a school where the janitorial staff is unionized and given the “right” of collective bargaining I can only imagine what it is like to try and find ANYTHING resembling accountability….
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 13, 2010 at 0914 hrs
forgot to mention that I saved roughly 10% when i started hiring independents rather than bringing people onto my payroll… I probably could have saved more, but I stuck with reputable local contractors who I have been doing business with through my retail store for years…. Turns out, that having the contractor buy materials from me to do repairs on my buildings is a double savings (profit) as compared to writing the materials off when I employed my own people.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 13, 2010 at 0917 hrs
Oh, and my tools and equipment stopped disappearing when I hired the jobs out as well… Interesting.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 13, 2010 at 0922 hrs
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