Student employees are speaking up against poor working conditions within the Resident Safety program. // Photo courtesy of Megan Naftali
Hofstra students are expressing concern over the unfair treatment of student employees and technological issues within the Resident Safety program during COVID-19. Complaints from Resident Safety Representatives (RSR) include a lack of breaks, inability to call out sick and inoperative T-monitors.
“[Working as an RSR] is already not the best, and not being able to get a break through any of that is quite distressing,” said Rosa Edwards, a sophomore political science and economics double major and former RSR. “It felt like there was really nobody to talk to about it. Whenever I brought up complaints to the office, they would just say ‘I’m sorry about that, we will make sure it doesn’t happen again,’ and then it would happen again.”
There are multiple accounts alleging that students were not offered meal breaks during an eight hour shift.
“I’ve seen other people who have not gotten meal breaks,” said Alexis Vega, a sophomore forensic science and drama double major and current RSR. “Or that have called and they haven’t been told when their meal breaks were.”
Student workers not receiving breaks is against the law according to section VI-6 of the 2020 Resident Safety Representative manual. “According to New York State labor laws, students employed with Resident Safety are required to take a half hour break after six consecutive hours of work,” the manual states.
“In terms of breaks, I have given the okay to put on more people so that we do have enough staff to give those breaks,” said Karen O’Callaghan, director of public safety.
However, the lack of availability of meal breaks is not the only issue RSR staff is facing. The inability to call out sick during the pandemic also poses an issue for student workers.
Edwards attempted to call out sick one evening during the Winter 2020-2021 session and was told that they must come in for their shift, despite already being over the maximum work hours that week due to copious amounts of students calling out. Upon arrival, Edwards immediately began vomiting in the booth and was not relieved for about an hour.
“Of course it’s not acceptable for someone to get sick and they’re told to come in,” O’Callaghan said. “If I, or the administrators are not made aware of that, then we can’t correct it.”
Edwards emailed Resident Safety Coordinator, Sasha Irace, regarding the incident. However, all they received was an apology and a promise to follow up, but Edwards never received a follow-up email.
Not only are student workers struggling with inadequate work conditions, but technological issues are persistent within the program. A survey conducted on Friday, Feb. 26 indicated that the T-monitors in the RSR booths were off in every residential building.
According to the RSR manual, each resident safety booth is equipped with a monitor that displays the student’s picture and name when their ID card is swiped. RSRs have the responsibility to pay attention to the person swiping the card to ensure that no unauthorized people are entering the building.
The T-monitors have been off since the middle of the Fall 2020 semester, according to a former RSR. Without the T-monitors, RSRs are unable to perform the proper procedures required of them.
“It’s harder for me to tell if it’s actually the person on the ID or not to make sure that people aren’t sneaking in,” said Nicole Mandy, a sophomore criminology and dance double major and a current RSR. “Which, I know a few cases of people doing that.”
According to O’Callaghan, the current system of identification was homegrown, and Card Access Services is currently working on adding a new, more technologically advanced access system to check IDs.
“It’s one of the major issues that we’ve been dealing with for years. That’s why it’s part of the system upgrade in technology,” O’Callaghan said. “The T-mons [T-monitors], they’ve been down, but it’s almost a fortunate time because we don’t have visitors coming to campus. We’re striving to get something in place so when we hopefully go back to full access in [September], we’ll have something in place.”
Additional administrative staff within Public Safety declined the request for comment at this time.
Amon • Jul 22, 2023 at 5:11 am
Got written up for sleeping despite the on-duty seeing me and talked with me. It’s every man for themselves… only the crafty survive. Using power to mark up lower workers while folks higher on the ladder even have friends sub in while they go do whatever else.