Town meeting to address outsourcing

Today's meeting will center on job security in the wake of the Trammell Crow deal. Ongoing concerns about the recently announced deal to outsource facilities management will bring together staff, faculty and students at a town meeting today at 5 p.m. in room 110 of the Annenberg School for Communication. Anyone with concerns about the recent deal to hand over management of University buildings to the Trammell Crow Company is encouraged to attend the meeting to protest against the University administration's handling of the deal, organizers said. In addition to employees concerned about their job security, representatives from groups such as the A-3 Assembly, the Graduate and Professional Student Association, the Undergraduate Assembly and the Black Student League plan to attend the meeting. African-American Association co-chairperson James Gray, who helped to coordinate the event, said he hopes today's meeting will "empower people to look at this problem and figure out how to solve it." "The employees need to deal with the aggravation and victimization they have experienced," he said. At last week's University Council meeting, A-3 Assembly Chairperson Donna Arthur called for the creation of a committee to discuss employees' concerns. She also requested that the University's highest human resources official report to Council every two months on the status of future outsourcing agreements. Council did not vote on either of the proposals. Because the deal will not be finalized until University Trustees approve the contract with the company at their November 7 meeting, organizers of today's meeting hope a unified protest will help prevent the deal from going through. If the deal is approved, the Dallas-based Trammell Crow Company will assume management of every University-owned building both on and off campus by March. Each of the approximately 175 affected employees will have to re-apply for their positions, and about 70 percent will be re-hired, administrators and Trammell Crow representatives said. The October 8 announcement -- which caught most employees by surprise -- raised concerns about the level of secrecy officials exercised in arranging the deal. Only a "small circle" of University administrators negotiated with Trammell Crow representatives, Executive Vice President John Fry said last week. Trammell Crow is paying Penn $32 million to agree to this deal -- $26 million up front and another $6 million later for helping it start its higher education venture, Fry added. Because facility management officials and all employees whose jobs are now in question knew nothing of the deal, many fear that the secrecy sets an unfair precedent. "More than anything else, this is a precedence and process issue," Undergraduate Assembly Chairperson and College junior Noah Bilenker said. "It's really a bad pattern of secrecy." Bilenker added that the administration's tight-lipped negotiation of the deal "breeds contempt and skepticism" among students and staff. Gray added that the decision to outsource the employees has far-ranging implications on University morale. "This has affected the entire working community and has had a serious demoralizing effect here," Gray said. "The decision was like being kicked in the butt without having an idea of what's coming up behind you."