In March 2020, then-Chancellor Joseph Steinmetz announced the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville’s intention to pay living wages to each of its employees. “Longstanding issues,” he said, had prevented it before, but he was committed to resolving them so that the wages for more than 540 grounds, housekeeping, maintenance, and clerical workers could be raised to $30,000 per year.

Steinmetz later explained that the university pegged the living wage at the amount each working adult in a four-person household (two working adults and two children) needed to earn for the family to live independently (i.e., without Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, ARKids insurance coverage or any other government assistance or resorting to the university’s food bank) in Washington County.

The chancellor kept his promise, and the university began paying living wages to those who made sure dormitories and classrooms were clean and sanitary, faculty could teach and conduct research, buildings and grounds remained in good repair, and students could graduate in a timely manner. Chancellor Steinmetz knew these workers were critical to the daily functioning of the university and that paying a wage competitive with employers throughout Northwest Arkansas would attract and retain the highest-caliber workforce. More importantly, he thought the university had a moral imperative to treat its workers right.

Unlike what some doomsayers predicted, raising the pay did not hurt the university. In fact, it is flourishing, setting enrollment records, retaining more of its students and generating more revenue than ever before.

Even though the university is as flush as it has ever been, the decision to pay living wages to essential custodial workers is now under threat. The university has contracted with a private company, SSC Services for Education, to study the possibility of privatizing custodial services. The university claims no decision has been made, but the very selection of this firm is troubling. The company also provides custodial services to dozens of universities, including University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. Asking a company that profits from providing custodial services to universities (and might be in line to receive the university contract) to provide an unbiased study about the risks and rewards of privatization suggests that the fix is in. It is like asking a car dealer if you should buy a new car — you know what the answer will be.

Privatization promises to make the lives of some of the university’s most essential workers more precarious. Although the university will undoubtedly provide assurances that existing employees retained by the contractor will keep their current wages, their benefits — both health insurance and pension contributions — will be immediately reduced. The desire for ever-increasing profits will keep wages low moving forward. Perhaps, most importantly, protections against arbitrary firings will be eliminated, and workers with the most experience and the highest wages will be the first to go. One must look no further than UAFS to see that SSC is not an employer of choice. The starting wage for custodians on that campus is 30% less than on the Fayetteville campus.

Privatization also threatens the rest of the University of Arkansas community, especially students in dorms and those who work on campus. The administration should take the Fayetteville Public Schools’ experience with SSC as a warning. The district contracted the company to provide custodial services at the high school in 2018 but dismissed the firm the next year. A district spokesperson treaded lightly when discussing the decision, suggesting to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (July 20, 2019) that there was friction between the SSC’s employees and the school’s teachers and staff. A teacher I talked with was more explicit — the faculty simply did not trust SSC workers. Since custodial staff have keys to dorm rooms and private offices, the university has a duty to ensure only trustworthy and forthright people are hired. Leaving those decisions to a private company with a spotty record would be reckless.

Privatizing custodial work is also bad for taxpayers. It will shift costs from the university to other public agencies. With reduced benefits and downward pressure on wages, the custodial staff will again be forced to rely on SNAP benefits, ARKids, and other government assistance programs. Arkansas taxpayers will pick up the tab for privatization, and any savings realized by the university will be used to pay the salaries of the ever-growing legion of administrators — vice chancellors, associate vice chancellors, assistant vice chancellors, etc. — many of whom have little to do with the core mission of the university. The prospect that the University of Arkansas will be squeezing both those at the bottom of the pay scale and the state’s taxpayers to fund the salaries of those at the top stands in opposition to its charge to help all the people of Arkansas.

The current chancellor has pledged to make the University of Arkansas the “employer of choice” for Northwest Arkansas. But that apparently does not include the custodial workers who were on the front line during the covid epidemic. When other universities continued to teach remotely in the fall of 2020, the custodial staff ensured that the University of Arkansas’s Fayetteville campus could open safely, classes could be held and research continued. The chancellor needs to redeem that promise to all the university’s essential workers — not just those who work at the top.