Several employees accused administrators Monday night of apathy toward their concerns and urged workers to cooperate to improve workplace conditions.
Most of the forum's eight panelists, including employees from Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, criticized management for not respecting employees' work and for restricting upward mobility. Employees said they struggle for years to make enough money to reach the poverty line.
"We feel like we're being talked to and listened to, but nothing's being done," said Maurice Corders, an employee in the Department of Materials Management in Duke Hospital and a member of the Medical Center minority employee task force.
The panelists spoke to a group of about 40 employees and students. President Nan Keohane attended most of the panel discussion.
Employees said some managers continue to discriminate against black workers. Last summer, a group of Duke employees asked the Durham chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to examine institutional racism in the Medical Center.
An investigation by the chapter found that the employees' allegations of discrimination "have substantial merit," the organization wrote in an August press release.
Florine Roberson, an employee in the Medical Center and immediate past president of the Durham chapter of the NAACP, said in one case a white man was promoted ahead of the black man who had trained him.
Poor communication between managers and employees also continues to frustrate workers, some said.
Because authority is very centralized, employees often have little input into decision making, said Charles Gooch, an employee at the East Union Food Court and shop steward in the food service employees' union, Local 77.
Even when administrators try to help, they often take half-hearted steps toward improving working conditions, panelists said. The University offers child care to workers, for example, but several panelists said the care is too expensive for many employees.
"They need to broaden it out so more employees can participate in it," Gooch said.
Panelists also noted several steps employees should take to improve conditions in the workplace.
"We cannot blame Duke for everything. Some of these things occur because of us," Roberson said.
Workers do not effectively communicate their complaints to management, Corders said. "Unfortunately, we don't stand together when we do our complaining; we don't work together."
Barbara Prear, a housekeeper at UNC-CH who has helped organize employees in a fight to improve working conditions, shared her experiences during the forum.
"If poor people don't start staying together, whether you're union or not union, you're going to get nowhere in the South," Prear said. "You got to wake up and work together with people."
Two student panelists encouraged students to join the employees' struggle.
"If you stand back and spend your four years at the University and watch these employees being paid poverty wages, then you're part of the problem, not part of the solution," said Chris Bauman, a student at UNC-CH who has helped housekeepers address their problems with administrators.
A coalition of students and employees helped stop the privatization of the old Boyd-Pishko Cafe, said Trinity senior Danielle Salus, coordinator of the Community Service Center Students-Employees Relations Coalition, one of the sponsors of the event.
A student committee had proposed that the Bryan Center eatery be turned into a Wendy's franchise, owned and operated by the fast food chain's parent company. But the proposal was derailed when a group of students and employees protested that the change would cost 17 employees their jobs, Salus said.
The forum, which was held in the lower level of the Bryan Center, was also sponsored by the University chapter of the NAACP.
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