Mirror - Vol. 38, No. 22 - April 10, 2013

              THE MIRROR Student-run newspaper Week of April 10,2013 Vol. 38, Iss. 22
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The Fairfield Mirror
Fairfield University's maintenance staff packs their equipment into the barn after a day of work on the University grounds a week after negotiations. Nick DiFazio/TAie Mirror
Maintenance staff fights for job security
BySalvatoreTrifilio
News Editor
If you've ever been locked out
of your room, needed a light bulb
changed or wanted a hole in your
townhouse wall patched up, then
you've most likely encountered one of
the 33 members of Fairfield Univer-sity's
maintenance staff that keeps the
school in shape every day.
Few students are aware of the
ongoing negotiations over wages and
job security between representatives
of the Department of Facilities Man-agement
and the Fairfield adminis-tration
that date back to September of
last year.
On Aug. 7, 2012 the 33 members
of the maintenance staff voted to join
Local 30 International Union of Op-erating
Engineers. The vote passed
with a majority of about 27 votes.
The union has been represent-ing
the maintenance staff in routine
negotiations ever since. Negotiations
last week saw administration offer
the maintenance staff a 1-year initial
contract, an offer the University sees
as fair yet the staff was not prepared
to take the offer.
"It started over the last five years.
One year we got a percent raise, one
year we got no raise," said Pat Bike,
who has been representing the de-partment
of energy within the main-tenance
staff during negotiations with
Fairfield administration.
Bike and the other representa-tives
are not the only ones who have
felt the cutbacks from the recent eco-nomic
troubles that Fairfield has gone
through. Administration acknowl-edged
that financial difficulties have
caused cutbacks.
"Over the past few years it's no
secret that the university, as well as
everybody else, [have] been dealing
with financial difficulties," said Mark
C. Reed, Senior Vice President of Ad-ministration
and Chief of Staff. Reed
also highlighted in a letter to a mem-ber
of the maintenance staff, "no one
in the Facilities Department was laid
off during some of our most difficult
times."
Although it is true that main-tenance
received no layoffs, it has
seen employees leave Fairfield or re-tire
without their positions being re-placed.
According to Ryan Lyddy, rep-resenting
the department of grounds,
this loss of staff leads to more "in-house
jobs" being outsourced to
contractors "because we simply don't
have the manpower."
Reed explained that using out-side
contractors to handle bigger jobs
is a normalcy in both the public and
private sector, for the sole reason that
the staff is too small. Although main-tenance
agreed with Reed on this par-ticular
issue, they are upset that Fair-field
does not offer these jobs to them
before looking for outside help.
"We have to work with outside
contractors, we have a good relation-ship
with outside contractors," said
Lyddy, "but when they're telling us
there's no overtime and then there's
outside contractors doing the work
... just give us the opportunity first
before you go to outside contractors."
READ MAINTENANCE ON PAGE 4
CT cracks down on guns
By Giovanna Giampi
Assistant News Editor
On Thursday, April 4, Con-necticut
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy
signed a bill giving the state some
of the toughest gun laws in the
country, among it new restrictions
on weapons and large capacity am-munition
magazines.
The House and the Senate ap-proved
the bill 105-44 and 26-10
respectively, during marathon ses-sions,
including weeks of hearings
and four weeks of private negotia-tions,
according to the Connecticut
Post. The goal: to strike a bipartisan
deal between the parties, and show
that they could work together in
Connecticut, and also the country.
Coming 110 days after the
tragedy in Newtown on Dec. 14,
family members of many Sandy
Hook School victims were in at-tendance
at the capital in Hartford
while Malloy signed the bill.
Fairfield students and faculty
sounded off regarding the parts of
the bill took effect immediately af-ter
Malloy's signature.
"I am hopeful that 'the Con-necticut
effect' will not be what
was originally taken as the idea
that the support for reforming gun
legislation would fade in time as
we moved on from the recent trag-edy,"
Nicole Davidow '15 stated,
"Instead, I hope that 'the Connect-icut
effect' is more like a domino
effect, helping
other states and —■—^^^^^—
fellow Ameri- -. ,
cans understand 1 ™ Compulsion tO do
how important something, regardless of
t is to continue ,fo wisdom, is a dangerous
tendency."
Davidow.
All in all, Davidow is "happy
that Connecticut is taking initia-tive."
Danielle Corea, Program Co-ordinator
for the Office of Faith and
Public Life, organized the Fairfield
delegation that attended the Febru-ary's
March for
to put pressure
on politicians
to continue to
have these dis-cussions
and ^^^~^"^—^~
make changes
concerning gun
legislation."
Earlier in the week, after ask-ing
Sen. Joe Markley to support
gun violence prevention legislation
through email, Davidow received a
response saying he would not sup-port
the legislation.
"The compulsion to do some-thing,
regardless of its wisdom, is a
dangerous tendency," Markley told
Sen. foe Markley
Change rally at
the state capi-tal
building in
Hartford.
"I am
pleased with the
decision. I be-lieve
Connecti-cut
will stand as
*—'^—■ a strong model
for the rest of
the country to
follow. Now, more than ever, our
country needs reform around this
issue," she told The Mirror.
In a press release follow-ing
Malloy's signature, Sen. Chris
Murphy, emphasized the need for
the rest of the country to react as
Connecticut did.
"Connecticut has proven that
Republicans and Democrats can
come together to pass tough, com-mon
sense gun laws, and I hope my
colleagues in Congress will join me
in the coming weeks to get this
done for our country," he said.
Critics of anti-gun regulations
say that guns are not the problem,
but the individuals possessing them
are, and crowds of pro-gun activ-ists
were at the capital on Thursday,
shouting, "Just vote no."
Sen. Catherine Osten warns
that this kind of legislation is a
"false sense of security," and she
was among only one other demo-cratic
senator who voted against it.
Republican State Sen. Art Lin-ares
told reporters he feels the bill
will pose unnecessary harm on gun
owners and that this was a missed
opportunity to reform the mental
health system.
Still, there may be room for
conversation between those for
and against this kind of legislation,
and only time will tell.
"I welcome the opportunity
to discuss gun control and I hope
that people across our country can
open up their hearts and minds to
do the same," Davidow said.
Bruce Berdanier, new Dean
to School of Engineering.
Office of Media Relations/Fairfield
University
Fairfield has
a new Dean
By Enxhi Myslymi
Contributing Writer
Living in South Dakota until
the middle of May, Dr. Bruce Ber-danier,
politely accepted a phone
interview to discuss his new posi-tion
as the dean of Fairfield s School
of Engineering.
"I think [Fairfield] is a good
fit for me," said Berdanier, adding,
"It's similar in size to [South Dakota
State University] where I'm at now."
READ DEAN ON PAGE 4
News:
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