To the Bowdoin Community,
On Friday, the Orient published an investigation into the wages and working conditions of employees in housekeeping and groundskeeping at Bowdoin.
The story revealed many workers struggle to make ends meet, and often work extra jobs on top of their full time employment at Bowdoin. Some shared stories of visiting the food pantry or collecting leftover food they found at work. Others shared that they are unable put any money towards savings and are especially vulnerable to financial emergencies.
The story also revealed that Bowdoin sets is wages based on the cold logic of the market. It does not take into account the needs of its workers or their ability to make ends meet.
In an accompanying editorial, the Orient laid out a call for a living wage policy at Bowdoin and some simple steps to make that happen by the 2019-2020 fiscal year.
We wholeheartedly echo this call. We do not purport to know what that policy should look like—what the minimum wage should be or how to determine it—but a working group made up of support-staff workers, administrators students and living-wage experts should begin the process.
Finding this money will be difficult. Bowdoin’s $1.4 billion endowment spits out a budget that does not have a lot of wiggle room currently, but things can be shifted around. We do not recommend that it should come from funds allocated towards financial aid and student assistance. Therefore, it is more than likely that this will require raising capital. We are a school that can mobilize HUGE sums of money for whatever we deem fit. Last year, the school announced a plan to spend $8 million on a new football field. In 2016 it announced a $10 million donation towards the Roux Center for the Environment. This year, it announced a $5 million donation towards THRIVE and another $10 million donation towards the Schiller Coastal Studies Center.
Every president launches a large fundraising initiative during their tenure at Bowdoin. President Rose, as indicated in emails to students earlier this year, is in the process of choosing his priorities for these funds. We strongly suggest that President Rose make guaranteeing a living wage to every employee of this College a pillar of his campaign.
In establishing a living wage, Bowdoin will follow numerous peer institutions. In October 2016, Harvard agreed to pay its dining hall at minimum, $35,000 per year. In July 2015, the University of California set a plan to raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour over three years. Last August, Duke University announced a plan to raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour by July 2019. In 2015, Duquense University in Pittsburgh, PA announced a minimum wage of $16 per hour.
We expected that the school would be receptive to the story and seek to look into the problem on its own, but on Saturday, the College published a response that expressed no concern or responsibility for the for the problems reported and expressed no plan or desire to change the status quo.
Bowdoin is a place where student, alumni and parent input is taken very seriously. After a petition by the Disabled Students Association (DASA) last spring, the school has taken swift action to make this campus more accessible for disabled students. The same can happen here.
We simply ask that the College take this opportunity to align its actions with its mission of the Common Good.
Sincerely,
Harry DiPrinzio '18
Diego Grossmann '20
Benjamin Ray '20
Adelaide Gonzalez '21
Sarisha Kurup '21
Srini Pandiyan '21