Student Life ArchivesWhile eight Nicaraguan workers have returned to Washington University in the past week to work for Top Care, Inc., the rearrival of the remaining 28 workers now looks extremely doubtful.
Although most believed they would be coming back to St. Louis, Top Care did not contact these remaining workers when the company met with select employees in Nicaragua’s capital city of Managua last week.
Top Care, the landscaping company contracted by the University, contacted the eight workers for a meeting regarding their return to St. Louis and their future employment. The rest of the deported workers, who had been employed under the University’s former landscaping contract with G&G Building Services, received no contact from Top Care about this meeting.
On Tuesday, the Student Worker Alliance (SWA) delivered a letter to Chancellor Mark Wrighton stating that they “would like the University to act honorably as an employer and do everything in its power to bring the Nicaraguans back.”
The administration has frequently stated that the contractors, not the University, are responsible for the hiring practices. The letter from the SWA claimed that “the University was directly responsible for bringing these workers to St. Louis in the first place…the University employed these workers as its own employees, despite there being contractors in between.”
In their written statement to the Chancellor, the SWA also included a letter from University Manager of Maintenance Operations William Wiley in which Wiley claimed responsibility for part of the University’s relationship with the workers.
In the letter, dated May 31, 2002, Wiley wrote that “officially members of this group will be employees of a contractor of the University called Spann or Encompass, but I am going to have much control over the use of the workers.”
Wiley declined to comment on the situation, stating that he did not have the authority to at the time.
In a letter of response to the SWA’s statement, Associate Vice Chancellor of Facilities Ralph Thaman wrote that the University has kept its promise to assist the displaced workers.
“At the time the workers departed in November 2003…the University agreed to assist the workers who were returning to Nicaragua in obtaining an interview with Top Care so that they could be considered for subsequent employment,” wrote Thaman, adding that the University did arrange for these interviews and that each worker hoping for an interview with Top Care received one.
According to Thaman’s letter, “the University acted in good faith during the interview process…However, the University did not and could not guarantee that Top Care would ultimately hire the Nicaraguan workers, and the University clearly made that point to the workers at the time.”
The SWA’s letter to the Chancellor also demanded a refund of the $275 that workers paid to hold their lease on apartments in St. Louis. According to the SWA, “all 36 workers signed an agreement that relieved them from any and all debts in St. Louis. However, after boarding the plane Mr. William Wiley, maintenance manager for Washington University, collected $275 dollars from every worker-allegedly to pay their apartment leases. The workers were told they were paying this money to have their apartments reserved when they returned.”
In his letter to the SWA, Thaman stated that this sum would be fully refunded.
“The University will arrange to reimburse each worker for the full amount previously collected, plus interest,” he wrote.
While $275 may not seem extremely valuable in the United States, based on the minimum wage in Nicaragua-as reported by La Prensa, the nation’s national newspaper-that amount could support a family for nine months. One worker remaining in Nicaragua, who wished to remain anonymous, expressed the importance of that sum of money.
“The salaries here are very meager,” said the worker. “We’re trying to find out what to do and how to get by. We barely make enough to eat and having been living with the hope to return. Hope is the last thing to lose. But by now all the papers that were signed and commitments that were made have been broken. I believed in the word they gave; they seemed confident. They told us a date, but then moved the date. Now we know the original Top Care workers are back and we are here with nothing. We feel they lied to us and made us a false promise.”
Thaman’s statement expressed that “the University regrets that Top Care has not yet hired these Nicaraguan workers to return to the United States,” adding that workers have already been compensated by the University for lost time and travel expenses.