Part-time workers anxious for release fo benefits plan

Under the current plan, part-time employees are not eligible for health care, dental coverage or disability leave. Many University employees are anxiously awaiting a new benefits plan slated to be presented early next week. But for part-time employees, the wait has already gone on for nearly four years. Part-time employees -- who work between 17.5 and 28 hours a week -- are not eligible for benefits such as paid health care, dental coverage or disability leave. The workers do benefit from a University group health care rate. And part-time workers hired after 1989 cannot participate in a retirement plan. In December 1995, a group of part-time employees asked University Council to consider granting benefits to part-time workers on a pro-rated basis. A UC committee studied the issue and recommended little change to the current plan, according to graduate career counselor Julie Vick, who works part time. Vick added that the recommendation was mooted anyway by a Coopers & Lybrand study later that year which suggested revamping the entire benefits structure. "This is just saying that we are second class citizens," Vick said. "Denying this was a significant wage penalty and they haven't really dealt with it." And some part-time employees claim they are really working full-time hours, since their jobs demand extra effort. A Dining Services employee who wished to remain anonymous said he worked well over 28 hours, but was still considered part-time until he switched to an official full-time schedule later. When he made the change, he said, he was promised that his date of hiring --Ewhich is used to calculate seniority and benefits -- would be considered the date he began his part-time job. But those calculations were later made based on the date he became a full-time worker. Another Dining Services employee said she was hired as a part-time worker, only to be told later that she was a "temporary worker." While part-time workers have access to limited benefits, such as vacation and sick leave, temporary workers have no benefits and cannot work more than 999 hours a year. She added that she didn't receive any description of her job status or benefits when hired. Glen Lyons, a temporary employee in Dining Services, said he was told he would be eligible for a part-time or full-time position after working for a few months. Lyons has already worked over a year -- beyond the 999 hour-maximum -- without a change. Many Dining Services employees have had similar confusion with their work status, the male employee said. They receive no description of their status or benefit upon hiring and are led to believe they are part-time. Vice President for Human Resources Clint Davidson declined to comment on specific complaints, explaining he has never heard criticisms of that nature before. "If these are concerns, these staff members ought to bring them forward," Davidson said. "They would be reviewed and reviewed seriously." He added that there is some possibility for confusion between part-time and temporary status workers, since temporary workers are hired by a separate temporary program and not by the University. "It is possible that someone who came to the University thought it was a University job and not that they were hired for the temporary agency," he explained. But Jim Gray, a library services assistant and tri-chairperson of the African American Association of Faculty and Staff, said he is familiar with these types of problems. "We are seeing a pattern of greater use of part-time workers in full-time positions and a greater promotion of part-time workers to full-time jobs rather than just making those workers full-time in the first place," Gray said. "That is also exploitation, and that is dehumanizing." Gray added that despite the complaints, "they don't seem to be getting any respect." "It is unfair for an educational institution that has a responsibility to shape the minds and education of our young people to exploit labor that way," he said. Vick said that although she has not had to work overtime on a regular basis, people "should say, 'No, I will not work more unless you reclassify me'." Faculty Senate Chairperson Peter Kuriloff said he would guess that the part-time workers are disproportionately women, making this both a benefits and an equity issue. Vick explained that many of the part-time employees have worked at the University for over 10 years. "These are not people who come in and leave," she said. "They are true professionals and do many of the same things as their full-time colleagues." She added that her group spoke to other Ivy League universities and that their part-time worker benefits far surpass those of Penn. "It would be nice for the University to recognize that being part-time does not mean that you are not a committed employee," Van Pelt Librarian Illene Rubin said.

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