Custodial staff fear for their jobs as they navigate an understaffed, chaotic workplace and unresponsive
union. Workers were told not to speak to Tartan reporters after an investigative article last spring. Arden Ryan/ News Editor
Carnegie Mellon began its custodial contract with UG2 in January 2023, replacing Aramark, which had been on campus since 2015. This meant custodians at Carnegie Mellon, who are represented by Service International Union local 32BJ, were managed by a new leadership team.
Founded in 2012, UG2 is a relative newcomer to the facilities service industry. Their website highlights their work in facility services in higher education and emphasizes “unheard-of levels of service for schools you’ve definitely heard of.” This includes Stanford, where in February The Stanford Daily published “Inside UG2 at Stanford: Surveillance, favoritism, intimidation” about UG2’s mistreatment of the custodial workers on their campus.
In March, The Tartan published “‘We’re like bodies with no heads’: UG2 violates union contract, mistreats custodial staff,” highlighting the issues that the custodial staff were facing on our campus. UG2 executives visited campus one week after publication, and workers hoped that this would signify a change.
It has been over six months since The Tartan’s report, and workers are still frustrated.
The Tartan spoke with six custodians working on campus through UG2, all of whom requested anonymity over fear of reprisals. As one worker said, “People are scared, people are terrified.”
At least one worker was told by their supervisor not to speak to reporters from The Tartan.
The conversations painted a picture of a staff that feels overworked, disrespected, and all too aware of the precarity of their position. Expressing a common sentiment, one custodial worker said, “We’re not humans to them. We’re numbers, we’re dollar signs. They don’t care about our bodies, they don’t care about our families, as long as we’re there to make them look good.”
Prevented from grieving
Thomas “Tom” Gravely began working at Carnegie Mellon in the summer of 2011, when campus custodial services were contracted to Integrated Service Solutions. He worked in housing services, covering Stever last year and Forbes Beeler this year.
Gravely passed away on Nov. 21.
Multiple workers told The Tartan that his passing hit the team hard. As one custodian put it, “There was a grey cloud here. Now that he passed, it’s a thunderstorm.”
Gravely’s viewing and funeral service were scheduled for last Friday, and The Tartan spoke to multiple workers that were unsure if they would get the time off they needed to attend. There is a point system for workers where they receive one point for a tardy, and two points for an absence, with an apparent threshold of 13 points resulting in a firing. We write apparently, as it seems that many workers would already be over the threshold were it not for points not being tracked properly through the transition from Aramark to UG2.
Additionally, some workers reported receiving different amounts of points for the same offense. Workers were worried that they would receive a point for going to the viewing, but many went anyway to show their love.
The workers were eventually given a two-hour window to pay their respects, but they were informed of this late enough that many did not get to see him. “They want us to pick between our home lives and our job,” one worker said.
Workers also reported that they needed a doctor’s note for absences, with one worker adding, “If we have a family emergency we can’t leave for anything. We’re like prisoners here.”
Complaints of understaffing
Every worker interviewed by The Tartan mentioned understaffing as a serious issue.
Some workers believe that this is due to UG2 potentially overreporting their amount of contracted employees to Carnegie Mellon. One person interviewed believes that the number of UG2 janitors on campus could be as low as 100, and thinks that UG2 is reporting over 200 workers to Carnegie Mellon, potentially including employees that were terminated.
When asked by The Tartan in March 2024 about the staffing levels, Kathryn Leary wrote that “in 2020, custodial staff increased by approximately 10 custodians and has remained consistent since then, with staffing currently at approximately 170 custodians.” This number is around 30 less than the staff count reported the year before on Jan. 1, 2023, despite UG2’s claims of not having laid off any workers since 2020.
The Tartan attempted to get more recent estimates of custodial staff employed by UG2 on campus from both UG2 and the Carnegie Mellon Facilities Management Services. UG2 “decline[d] to respond to questions about workforce-specific details related to our operations at Carnegie Mellon University,” and Charity Anderson, Director of Facilities Operations at Carnegie Mellon, wrote that the “custodial staffing levels remain consistent. CMU continues to be committed and engaged in supporting our employees and successfully delivering custodial services across campus.”
The alleged understaffing could also be aggravated by what appears to be a rather high turnover rate. Staff mentioned “los[ing] coworkers due to small things like punching out a second or two late,” and that managers seem eager to fire workers before they have a suitable replacement.
Many staff reported feeling like they were purposefully being pushed out, and that conditions are intentionally being made poor because “they would rather have people quit so they don’t have to fire them.”
Additionally, workers who have been working on campus for years have said they feel as if they are being pitted against the new hires, who are allegedly being hired and promoted into positions over the workers with more seniority. UG2 and Carnegie Mellon declined to share if and how many workers had been fired or hired.
The understaffing is severe enough that workers reported managers occasionally working cleaning shifts, which is in violation of the union contract and was also brought up when reporting was first done by The Tartan in March.
Frustration goes beyond management
Some of the custodial staff do not feel properly represented by their union, SEIU 32BJ. In a conversation with two workers, they said that: “Our union is terrible. We can’t get in touch with anybody. They agree to everything that [UG2] say[s]. It’s like dealing with snakes in the grass.”
Another worker echoed this, saying that the union is allowing people to get fired without putting up a fight.
Some workers believe that the scope of managing custodial work for the entire Carnegie Mellon campus is too much for UG2. “I think UG2 is broke. I think they underbid it, CMU is way too much for them, and they cannot handle everything that CMU is asking of them,” one worker said.
Workers mentioned needing to spend time on their shifts looking for supplies that aren’t where they should be and attending safety meetings describing safety protocols involving equipment that the workers do not have, when they could instead be using this time to clean and complete relevant tasks.
Student Impact
Multiple custodians interviewed mentioned that Carnegie Mellon students were a motivator for their work, and mentioned “the students appreciate us more than [UG2 does].”
Cleaning all the buildings, and the dorms especially, clearly provides a great service to Carnegie Mellon students, but staffing issues have led to days where only one worker will be there to clean an entire building. Even at times like Family Weekend, staffing stays low.
Workers reported being overworked in the weeks leading up to the new students’ arrival in late August, and that conditions in some dorms were so poor that “when the kids were coming back, none of their rooms were done.”
Managers waited until September to give delayed write-ups, terminating workers once they were no longer needed. Students living on-campus this year corroborated this, mentioning a “mad cleaning scramble,” and seeing parents come in for move-in day to still-dirty rooms.
Changes in management
There has been significant turnover among the UG2 managerial staff working at Carnegie Mellon. Allegedly, six managers have either quit or been fired, including the site manager Doug Hastings in October, whose name still appears on the Carnegie Mellon Custodial Services webpage. Hastings and UG2 were asked about this, but did not respond. The Site Manager position appears to still be open.
Workers are wondering Carnegie Mellon will replace UG2 with a different management company in 2025.
Carnegie Mellon was asked about new contract bidding but did not respond. The current contract between the union and UG2 expires Dec. 31, 2027.