Just a little under a month ago, Sonoma State custodians, many who take care of children and elderly family members, were overworked and understaffed, with many just able to make ends meet by working two jobs. About two weeks ago, they lined up at their union’s door with anger and betrayal in their eyes after receiving a notice that they might be forced to quit the job they rely so heavily upon. 

On the morning of Friday, Feb. 2, the custodial night crew was handed a notice by J. Dana Twedell, the associate vice president for Administration and Finance, said that as of July 5, their hours would be changing from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 to 10:30 a.m. 

“While we understand this is not an ideal scenario for the staff whose schedules are being changed, the purpose of the change is to optimize operations and better serve the campus and its students,” Twedell stated. 

The first main impact of Twedell’s proposed change would be that Sonoma State runs the risk of their students not waking up to a clean environment, and faculty having to walk into work with uncleaned offices, since the custodians would be cleaning up until 10:30 a.m., past the time many students and faculty start their day. An already overworked staff would also be required to fill the role of other co-workers forced to quit because of the proposed change. 

“This is very difficult work. Our population is what-21 employees– to cover this entire campus? And on the weekends a maximum of 4 people. So we have very few people to cover the campus because of it.” A custodian who wished to stay anonymous said.

This also means that students and faculty could be interrupted during their mornings as the custodians try to finish their jobs quickly and efficiently. Lastly, this proposed change would contribute to custodians’ health issues.

“To be very honest we are worth more. The sanitation process is something that cannot be taken lightly. We can not have this place overrun with vermin… To have to do so much with so little,” an anonymous custodian said. “This is pretty much the final straw.”

The California State University Employees Union, CSUEU, who represents these vulnerable workers, sent out a cease and desist letter to Sonoma State which detailed how the union would not allow this proposed time change to happen, as it would negatively impact the workers. Many would be forced to quit, and the ones remaining would be even more drastically overworked. 

Twedell stated that Sonoma State did follow the contract that it holds with CSUEU by notifying the affected employees five months in advance of the change, and the contract does let their managers set their employees’ the contract does let their managers set their employees’ schedules. However, CSUEU representatives, Stephen Green and Gina Voight explained that CSUEU’s contention on the subject was that the proposed change wasn’t just a schedule change, rather an operational change that affects the entire workforce.

The Sonoma State STAR reached out to Twedell for an interview, however, the only reply was a short email on the subject that did not clarify why exactly the time change was happening. Green and Voight said from their understanding that the time change was proposed for two main reasons: to save electrical costs and because faculty wanted to see the custodians cleaning. 

However, when CSUEU reached out to Twedell for a list of the faculty members, they weren’t given a clear one. It’s important to note that according to CSUEU, the Associate Director of Custodial and Moving Services, Robert DeNofrio, and the Night Custodial Supervisor, Christopher Nakamura, were laid off for budgeting reasons. 

“My theory is the end game is they’d be quite happy if all these people quit. Because they like to contract out the services. It’s consistent with what we’re seeing. Since the beginning of the fiscal year, July 1st, I’ve been tracking contracting out on this campus. And there are at least a hundred thousand dollars of services that our employees could be doing that have been contracted out to outside vendors”, Green expressed.

One of the problems with this proposed change and the possible contracting to outside sources, other than seeing loyal employees being repaid for their hard work by being forced to quit, is the effects it will have on the campus itself. 

A distressed Green elucidated, “If you bring in a custodial service to do the work there’s a good chance you’re going to have a different crew every night. There’s going to be a loss of efficiency; there’s going to be a loss of dedication to the end product. They’re not going to take the pride of ownership in the work [like when] you see actual CSU employees doing it.” 

Regardless of the push back and cease and desist by CSUEU, Twedell does not plan on reversing the new schedule change, as of Feb. 20th. It seems the next move and outcome of this confrontation is up to CSUEU, custodians, Sonoma State faculty, and the students.