The Sky's the Limit

Two weeks ago, the maids and janitors asked the University for a rise in pay. They said the increased cost of living and higher taxes made it difficult to make ends meet.

The present contract between the University Representatives Association and the University will not run out until next June 30. The H.U.E.R.A. wants to break that contract.

No one will argue that it costs everyone, students included, more to live these days. The question is not whether the maids and janitors deserve a new wage hike, but whether they have the right to ask for one before their contract expires, setting precedent for such demands. Once successful, they can use every future government Cost-of-Living Index to prove they need a new boost in wages.

The maids are now paid more than any university maids in the country, a fact they used last year to prove they didn't need A.F.L. affiliation. The janitors are also among the best paid in the country.

Furthermore, if the maids and janitors are entitled to wages that will rise as the cost of living does, then the University can feel justified in raising room rents, now at an all-time high, in the same proportion. Maid service takes up a large part of the University's budget for upkeep of Houses.

If the maids do get this pay increase and others on the same basis, there are three things the University can do to keep room rents from rising, all of them detrimental to the maids.

1. It could extend the student porter plan to all the Houses and dormitories. Residents of Dunster and Thayer have said they are completely satisfied with the porters' work, and that it is as good as the maids'. However, the University is having trouble finding enough porters now to take care of the work in Dunster and Thayer since exams are approaching.

2. The University could adopt a plan similar to Yale's, whereby every student cleans his own room according to standards set by a group of inspectors. This plan has proved somewhat impracticable at Yale, where conditions are described as "generally messy."

3. The best alternative is to cut the maid force down to half, and have the remaining maids clean one set of rooms on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday one week, and Tuesday and Thursday the next, and the other set on Tuesday and Thursday the first week, and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday the next. This system would not increase the maids' work and would enable the University to save a good deal of its House upkeep budget. The plan might even permit a lowering of rents.

These are not suggested as desirable courses of action. Maid service is good and, if possible, should not be curtailed. But the higher cost of living is hitting students as well as employers. Until their contract expires, the maids should expect to meet higher living costs as best they can.