TO THE EDITOR:
Dear Chancellor Folt (an open letter):
We write to you as concerned representatives of Student Stores employees and in response to The Daily Tar Heel article “Employees at other schools describe positive relationships with Follett.”
Over the past several months, we have witnessed a Request for Proposals process that has been clumsily led. It has damaged employee morale not only among Student Stores employees but among employees across the University who fear that their jobs are next.
We echo professor Vin Steponaitis’ comments at the October Faculty Council meeting when he observed that employees at this University have worked hard and given their all to this place, while seeing little in the way of increased benefits and salaries over the years.
The trade-off between whatever relatively small amount of money a private company will generate and 49 people’s jobs is not worth the cost of lowering staff morale.
We are surprised by the administration’s response to the “unsolicited” proposal by Follett.
It has become clear over the past few months from rumored site visits by outside companies, funds wasted for the purpose of RFP preparation instead of student scholarships, and the loss of an additional $500,000 in revenue because of cost-savings strategies that have been delayed due to the RFP, that the stores are being prevented from carrying out their mission: to increase revenue for student scholarships.
The DTH article fails to mention that we’ve talked with former employees across the UNC system who experienced bookstore privatization. Those employees describe awful experiences, reduced hours and the elimination of benefits.
