Solidarity with USF Furloughed Staff

May 20, 2020

We stand in solidarity with our colleagues as they receive news of layoffs and furloughs that will affect their household economies and also their morale. We oppose these cuts, especially coming in the wake of two months of extraordinary efforts across the campus to support continuity of instruction, admissions and recruitment of new students as the pandemic unfolded -- and during the very week in which they (and we) are working overtime to help our students have a meaningful commencement experience.

USF staff are critical contributors to the Mission of our university. Their work is essential for quality teaching, learning, and shared governance within academic programs and across our University. Our departments and programs rely on these dedicated professionals for the administrative functioning and continuity of our units internally. Often, they are the first critical point of access for the public and for our students.

We object to the betrayal of USF Values embodied in decisions that have resulted in the lowest paid campus workers carrying the brunt of the first deep cuts of this fiscal emergency. We call on university financial leaders to revisit Father Fitzgerald’s call to “progressive” budget principles (April 24, 2020 email to USF community) and uphold first the dignity of labor and principles of cura personalis in practice. In any “progressive” budgeting framework, OPEIU members and exempt staff, along with the laid-off food service and custodial workers employed by USF contractors, surely should not be the first to suffer the bulk of cuts.

At the same time, we are alarmed at the profoundly misguided nature of the decision to reduce program support staff at exactly the time when prospective students are most likely to contact departments in deciding whether or not to return or enroll for the first time at USF this fall. This summer, to minimize admissions melt and manage the transition to a very unusual fall semester successfully, faculty and staff will need to devote more -- not less -- time to recruitment, admissions, advising, planning, community engagement, service, and curriculum preparation.

A mission-centered Jesuit organization should always prioritize people first. We know that there are alternatives to furloughing staff. To make those options more visible, we call again for a transparent budget that reveals spending across the campus at all levels. All options that don't endanger livelihoods must be considered first.

Until now, faculty have joined our staff colleagues in good faith to work overtime throughout this emergency. We have signed up for committees, working groups and task forces to work through the summer out of commitment to our students, each other, and the institution. We have contributed to extraordinary admissions and recruitment activities, together with departmental program assistants, to achieve the high admissions yield for new and transfer students during this crisis. As we hear about the cuts of our staff colleagues across the campus, we are pausing to reconsider our own priorities.