Student protesters and members of the local community gathered on the Chapel Quadrangle Tuesday to voice their concerns about Duke University Health System's sale of its laundry facility to Angelica Corp., a textile services provider that has been accused of ignoring workers' rights and suppressing attempts at unionization.
The rally, organized jointly by Students Against Sweatshops and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, gathered a small crowd of onlookers and about 40 protesters. After speeches from labor leaders, student organizers and a former Angelica worker, the group marched to the office of William Donelan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of DUHS, to present him with petitions and a pile of dirty laundry.
SAS and UNITE presented a report detailing their concerns about Angelica to Donelan and President Nan Keohane last week, and representatives of SAS met with Donelan late Monday to further discuss those issues.
"We've [given the report] to Angelica, and I'm expecting a formal response to that material back to me," Donelan said, noting that overall he was pleased with his meeting with SAS. "I've told Students Against Sweatshops that I would provide them with that response from Angelica, and I've suggested that if they have further questions they can speak with Angelica representatives directly so they have a balanced view of the matter."
The display in front of the Chapel was the most visible symptom thus far of the controversy over DUHS's decision to sell its facility to Angelica and sign a 10-year service contract with the laundry provider.
"Cutting contracts behind closed doors with a company with a track record like Angelica's is not acceptable," said sophomore Rita Bergmann, one of the speakers. "The decision to outsource doesn't mean that Duke gives up responsibility."
Senior Jessica Rutter, one of the SAS members who met with Donelan, said she was less than pleased with the administration's response to the allegations against Angelica prior to signing an agreement, both in Monday's meeting and in the impromptu visit marchers paid Donelan Tuesday. The administration, she said, was not convinced the allegations against Angelica merited any University action, despite the evidence she said her group had presented.
Also among the concerns voiced by SAS and UNITE was the fact that DUHS claimed it had investigated the allegations against Angelica, but decided to contract with the corporation anyway. Donelan defended the research that preceded the contract with Angelica, but noted that "in fact some of the materials [in the SAS/UNITE report] had more detailed accounts of those allegations than I could find on the web."
Several themes surfaced during Tuesday's rally, including the perceived systemic outsourcing of Duke's auxiliary services, the battle over unionization and workers' safety and health rights. Members of Local 465, who work with the facilities management department at the University, were especially concerned about the outsourcing of laundry services because they worried other University jobs might be in jeopardy.
The primary motivation behind the sale of the facility, however, may not have been just another cut-and-dry privatization move. DUHS built the now-disputed laundry facility in 2001 at a cost of $14 million, expecting the newly-created Duke Laundry to save the system money by providing laundry service for other systems as well. Although the exact details of the contract finalizing the facility's sale to Angelica could not be released, Donelan said the corporation paid "about what [the laundry facility] was built for." He noted, however, that the facility never lived up to DUHS's expectations.
"These are challenging times for the health system," Donelan said. "The principal issue for us was trying to recapture the dollars invested in the laundry so we could redirect them into clinical services. Being a laundry provider is not a core part of our mission--delivering excellent care is at the core of our mission."
Completing the final stage of the transaction with Angelica, the laundry facility opened under the corporation's operation this past weekend, staffed entirely by non-union Angelica employees. The former employees of Duke Laundry, many of whom are members of Local 77, were all guaranteed other jobs within Duke by the administration, and officials have confirmed that nearly all of them have been placed elsewhere in the system. SAS and UNITE are already planning their efforts to spark a union movement at the new Angelica plant.
"Duke students don't organize unions, but UNITE is probably going to have an organizing campaign soon to organize those workers," Rutter said. "Students of course will be in solidarity with that union drive."
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