Rosa Villaseñor breaks right into a smile when speaking about what she loves about Northwestern College, her office of 15 years.
“I like every part,” she says in Spanish. “I like the campus and my coworkers. You see faces from everywhere in the world. I really feel welcomed and appreciated by the professors and college students.”
However again in 2018, whereas she was working as a housekeeper on the Kellogg Faculty of Administration’s James L. Allen Heart, Villaseñor and her colleagues discovered their jobs in limbo. NU, which contracts with outdoors firms to supply meals service, hospitality and cleansing providers, had modified contractors from Sodexo and Aramark to Compass Group.
The employees’ future was unsure throughout the transition, and Villaseñor spent many sleepless nights fretting about how one can put her eldest son via school and supply for her two youthful kids.
“We had been all fearful that we needed to reapply for our jobs and lose our seniority and advantages,” Villaseñor stated.
She and her colleagues, together with their union, Unite Right here Native 1, banded collectively and had been in a position to hold their jobs. This yr, Villaseñor confronted uncertainty once more and had her hours diminished after the college began demolishing the Allen Heart to make manner for a brand new facility. These two episodes led her to hitch an effort to push for laws to guard staff.
On Monday night time, the Evanston Metropolis Council handed the Staff’ Retention Ordinance, making the north suburb the primary municipality in Illinois to enact such a legislation.
“[The ordinance] is about understanding that in the event you proceed to do your job properly, your employment just isn’t going to fade at some point for some type of bureaucratic motive — whether or not you’re the president of the college or anyone who serves meals to undergraduates,” stated Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss.
Beneath the ordinance, if an establishment like Northwestern adjustments contractors, the brand new contractor should hold the present workforce for 90 days on the identical wages and advantages. After three months, the employees should be provided continued employment if their efficiency throughout the 90-day interval is “passable.”
The coverage applies to motels, eating places, cafeterias and academic establishments in Evanston which have a minimum of 200 contracted positions. At the moment, solely NU meets that threshold.
In a written assertion on Friday, NU spokesperson Jon Yates stated the college helps “insurance policies that promote stability and equity in employment,” however that it has severe considerations about how the laws would have an effect on prices.
“This ordinance would impose restrictions on our capacity to interact in aggressive contracting, restrict hiring autonomy for brand new service suppliers, and probably improve prices that would affect the broader college group,“ Yates stated.
He didn’t reply to a WBEZ query about what number of staff can be affected by the ordinance. Unite Right here Native 1 stated about 500 of its members are lined by the coverage. An SEIU Native 1 spokesperson stated roughly 300 of its janitors can be protected by the ordinance.
Compass Group, the present contractor offering meals and hospitality providers for NU, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Liza Roberson-Younger, Evanston’s chief legislative coverage advisor, stated the laws doesn’t merely defend staff and their households but additionally considers the “financial ripple results throughout a group,” she stated. “You probably have 200 or extra individuals who lose their job suddenly, that has huge downstream financial impacts — particularly in a group the dimensions of Evanston.”
She added: “One of many values of getting sort of groundbreaking laws in a spot like Evanston is that it offers a roadmap for different communities across the state or for the state itself,” she stated.
A number of different U.S. cities have legal guidelines that defend staff in case of latest possession or contractor adjustments, together with San Francisco, Baltimore, New York and Washington, D.C.
The passage of the Staff’ Retention Ordinance is an enormous win for Villaseñor, who lives in Evanston.
“I really feel actually proud to be part of making this legislation occur,” she stated. “This ordinance is useful for us as a result of we are able to sleep at night time figuring out we’ll have jobs even when the contractors change.”
Esther Yoon-Ji Kang is a reporter on WBEZ’s Race, Class and Communities desk. Observe her on X @estheryjkang.
