Montgomery Outsourcing

October 19, 2015

Members of the Board of Trustees.

Good evening! I am here to talk about the impending outsourcing of the bookstores. I and a number of bookstore employees feel that we have been seriously wronged by the college administration. This decision to outsource has jeopardized the livelihoods of many bookstore employees because of wrong financial decisions made by upper management in Auxiliary Services.

While outsourcing of jobs is not a new phenomenon, and is probably a norm in the current economic climate, our administration’s actions, from the beginning, can at best be described as a series of missteps and inconsiderate decisions. I am going to draw from the president’s September town hall meeting response. The president insisted in the meeting that Montgomery College (MC) was a “business”. She also mentioned that four and a half years ago when she looked at the bookstore financials she found them “interesting”. Clearly some restructuring was needed at least four and a half years ago. Bookstore revenues are at best flat. Clearly payroll was hurting bookstores viability. It needed a $30,000 consultant study to highlight this fact to our administration which some employees (including myself) had already pointed out at various times in the past. Nothing perceptible, at least to my level, was done to address this then. Is this how a “business” is run?

The CBC report stressed that we address payroll expense and bring it down to 18%. Outsourcing, in their opinion, was to be the end option if nothing else worked. Yet, in presenting our business plans we were specifically ordered not to address payroll by senior management at Auxiliary Services. What restructuring or reorganizations were considered by senior administration of the college before deeming outsourcing as the final plan? Clearly the college administration had indeed made up its mind very early on to outsource. Why then did the Sr. Vice President of Business Services, promise that “no jobs will be lost?”

In the fourteen years I have been at MC, Auxiliary Services underwent two reorganizations which were instituted by retired VP (previously director) premised upon creating efficiencies and increasing the bottom line. The result was we went from a million dollar contributory source to a business with a negative bottom line. While the changing dynamic of the textbook industry and payroll increase due to yearly salary raises are partly attributable to this result, the major cause was Auxiliary Services upper management creating an organizational structure that had no precedent in the college bookstore industry. A number of superfluous managerial positions were created. Cosmetic changes were made to select position descriptions resulting in grade jumps and salary increases. All this placed an unnecessary burden on bookstores’ bottom line. A few of us protested vehemently but were ignored by the director. Auxiliary Services upper management consisted of personnel who, albeit with college bookstore experience, did not have a financial or business background. Is this how a “business” is run?

This leads to the question: At what point does management hold itself responsible and accountable for wrongful decisions? When asked this question Sr. Vice President of Business Services, acknowledged at a meeting on September 14, 2015 and at a subsequent open forum at TPSS campus on September 24, 2015 that she was accountable. Our Sr. Vice President of Business Services, is accountable; however, honest and hardworking bookstore employees are going to pay with their jobs. Is this the definition of accountability? As if to rub salt on our wounds the college administration has decided to keep the one person, who was one of the key decision makers in our previous failed reorganizations, to oversee the transition to outsourcing. This is not MC! And this is not what MC stands for! This begs the question: is MC a good steward of taxpayers’ money?

A “destination employer” needs to promote a more bottom-up and open decision-making philosophy. Our college administration has taken the easy way out by eliminating a department because it is “convenient” by nature of how Auxiliary Services is structured rather than holding key people responsible for the current crisis. The issue at stake here is of fairness.