Stanford Report, April 16, 2007

President Hennessy meets with students about Stanford's living wage policy

President John Hennessy today met with six students representing the Stanford Labor Action Coalition to discuss the group's concerns about the university's living wage policy for contracted employees.

During the hour-long discussion, Hennessy listened to the students' concerns and reiterated the university's commitment to investigating specific allegations of violations of the living wage policy. The students presented the president with a proposed Code of Conduct that has provisions that go far beyond the living wage policy. He asked the students to revise the new documents to facilitate a better understanding of the lengthy demands and their relationship to the living wage policy.

Also attending were Diane Peck, executive director of human resources, whose office helps administer the policy, and Dean of Students Maureen Powers, who helped arrange the meeting.

Hennessy also reiterated his commitment that Stanford intends to ensure the policy is followed in both letter and spirit.

Stanford established living wage guidelines for contracted employees in 2003. The policy includes a wage minimum for contracted employees of $11.15 per hour with benefits and $12.59 per hour without benefits. The guidelines are estimated to cover about 125-150 workers providing basic services under current contracts with vendors.

The guidelines apply to contractors whose non-union employees provide basic services such as maintenance, grounds keeping, housing and food service. In addition to setting wage minimums, the policy also requires contractors to provide 10 paid days off per year for eligible employees.

The students were reminded that there are hundreds-perhaps thousands-of contracts put in place each year. Some are for very small dollar amounts or are one-time contracts that last only a short time. University officials have stated that it would be nearly impossible to monitor this number of contracts or would require unreasonable additional resources to implement this level of monitoring.

The living wage guideline does not apply to the university's employees because the salaries and benefits of Stanford regular employees are significantly higher than living wage policies in effect in various cities and counties in the Bay Area. Temporary and casual employees' pay rates are in the process of being migrated to the living wage pay rate, a process that began in late 2006 and is due for completion by Sept. 1, 2007.