Low Wages and Long Hours Leave Custodians Feeling Underappreciated and Upset

By Quinn Meyer Last updated Mar 2, 2023

Covered in Garfield stickers, not covered in cash in the slightest! PHOTO CREDIT: ALDEN TIMM ’25

(Disclaimer: this article contains opinions from members of our campus community)

At St. Lawrence University, we pride ourselves on our ability to have human connections with one another. We speak openly about the respect we have for every person on campus, and how this campus cultivates a loving and prosperous community. Meanwhile, there has been an ever-growing outcry from some of our most important community members. These folks are in many ways the soul of the community and the thing that literally keeps our university running: our custodial staff.

The Hill News was contacted by a member of our custodial staff who was outraged by the conditions and said that their opinions are widely shared. They ask to remain anonymous throughout this article for the protection of their job, so we will refer to them as Anonymous. After two separate occasions of the school denying the custodial staff a raise, “one last year and another a few years ago,” this year, reportedly, there was an hourly raise of about 19 cents. This is less than a one percent raise after multiple years of COVID and large amounts of inflation in every facet of the economy. Anonymous referred to this event as “a slap in the face.”

The starting wage for a member of our custodial staff is $14.25. The roles of custodial members include cleaning all buildings, and hard labor such as fixing floorings and even working outdoors—waking up early every morning to shovel out all of our walkways near our buildings. This low wage has caused many to deduce that, as Anonymous puts it, “Nobody wants to come here to work cause they aren’t paying nothing.” While some believe that $14.25 is a livable wage, this isn’t a realistic wage to live off of when calculating things such as taxes, union dues, health insurance, and other benefits. Even with the $14.25, without taking out union dues, it is easy to see just how unsustainable it is to live off of this income.

The average yearly income without counting taxes for someone working 40 hours a week, five days a week, with no weeks off all year, is $29,640. And with the 12 percent tax on income, it drops to $26,083.20. The average rent price for a two-bedroom apartment in St. Lawrence county in 2023 is $909.00 per month. This leaves the worker with $15,175 as a single-income person with no dependents. According to livingwage.mit.edu, one’s food expenditures over the course of a year should be a minimum of $4,559, average medical expenses are around $3,207 yearly, and transportation costs about $4,470. With a number of other factors to be in place, such as other unforeseen expenditures, it is hard to live off of the budget which St. Lawrence allows.

Dangerously low wages were present in 2020, while president Fox made $469,919. His housing, along with many other costs, were paid for. This is not in any way to say that a custodial staff member should make the same as a university president, but the university’s wages for those who are on the ground every day, morning, noon, and night, are at dangerously low levels. Anonymous stated, “We have been living in debt since around 2015.” In 2013, SLU costed students $59,550. Now, the total cost is $79,665. With this increase in tuition, Anonymous says that their pay has barely risen.

The people who work at this university love the community which they are a part of, as Anonymous stressed multiple times. However, for reasons such as a bleak job market and fears of losing their current positions, even with a union, workers will not speak out. With the pandemic having serious effects on the population of current workers at the university, they are surprised that they are not being rewarded for their efforts. Anonymous told us that, “The State (SUNY Canton) got a 13 percent bonus over the next five years, plus a signing bonus [for new employees].”

It is clear that Anonymous cares about the institution, but something must be done for the betterment of the community as a whole in order to preserve not only our workforce, but campus itself. Without the custodial services doing both skilled and unskilled tasks around campus every day, our campus would fall apart.

However, for reasons such as a bleak job market and fears of losing their current positions, even with a union, workers will not speak out. With the pandemic having serious effects on the population of current workers at the university, they are surprised that they are not being rewarded for their efforts. Anonymous told us that, “The State (SUNY Canton) got a 13 percent bonus over the next five years, plus a signing bonus [for new employees].”