Phony baloney!

GTS will wax long and hard about the baptismal covenant.

So will EDS in Cambridge.

As also the Diocese of Massachusetts.

But these venerable institutions revert to the Bain Capital model when the rubber hits the road.

GTS hides behind some inscrutable legalities, and an expression of "disappointment" in its reaction to a termination of a contract with Aramark.

EDS summarily dismissed a Chapel musician without as much as a nod to the Baptismal Covenant,

Dio. Mass, fired its excellent Human Resources Manager in favor of "outsourcing" to an H.R. business.

I am a man of the left. I believe that the scriptures call us to justice.

So it makes me sad and mad when purportedly "justice centered" Episcopal Church organisations such as GTS, EDS and Dio. Mass "conform to this world".

Fie on phony liberalism.

Clear the decks for gospel radicalism.

Taking needed action to turn General around seems to me to be laudable. I don't see the claims of justice implying that institutions should commit suicide.

General seems to have handled this very badly. They should have known that outsourcing meant possibly abandoning people who had worked for the seminary for decades. The seminary has generally had poor relations with the local community board, neighborbood elected officials, and the Manhattan Borough President. Now they have upset a politically well connected union.

Gary Paul Gilbert

@J. Michael: I trust that at the same time you are committed to scriptural justice you have also generously donated your hard-earned cash to the Diocese of MA and to GTS. If the choice is between going bankrupt or gutting core ministries and outsourcing, then outsourcing makes sense. Also, I believe GTS when it said it preferred to give its former employees a better potential career path than having to outright fire them when their services were no longer needed. Makes sense to me.

The problem with "true liberalism" is that someone has to pay for it. Few are willing to do so.

Part of the issue with the Union, I assure you, is that the General Theological Seminary replaced Aramark, a faithful Union company, with an alternative that does not hire union workers nor cooperate with the Union. The inflatable rat does not often come out without a major violation of Union rights.

@J.Michael - GTS has made some mistakes in the past, but not this time. Aramark knew of this long ago and did nothing for its workers. They have a long history of mistreating their workers (I used to work for them, so I may not be entirely unbiased in the other direction, I admit). It should be noted that many (if not all - I don't know for sure) of GTS's own employees that got laid off during this restructuring were given more than generous severance packages.

And please don't hijack this comment thread to air your grievances with EDS and the Diocese of Massachusetts.

[Editor's note: Thanks for the comment. Please sign your name next time.]

My question is who these folks were employed by. If the jobs were outsourced to Aramark "in the past," and Aramark was notified of the change of contract "months ago," then these were not GTS employees but Aramark employees. That they worked in the same location doesn't change the fact that they were under new management. In that case, GTS really has little they can do than to advocate.

The union spokesperson noted that "The men were officially employed by Aramark, a maintenance contracting company for schools and universities.

The workers had originally been employed directly by the seminary until Aramark was brought on in 2009, Davis added. The seminary agreed that any new contractors would continue to employ the same workers with the same wages and benefits."

For perhaps three years Aramark did so. At this late date, it seems there's little the seminary could do about a how Aramark reacted to loss of the contract.

Marshall Scott

"Phoney baloney"? Do tell? If the maintenance workers were employed by Aramark, not GTS, then how could they be fired by GTS? How can you be fired by somebody whom you don't work for? That's a really good trick!

You also have to add in the fact that Aramark is looking for people in other parts of Manhattan. They did not HAVE to let the GTS workers go. GTS was TOLD this would be done by Aramark back in July. This was a deliberate move by Aramark to pressure the seminary into renewing the contract; it's a simple variation on the old "poison pill" defense.

We are seeing the issues here with outsourcing of employees, and making employees "contractors".

Outsourcing is not always moving jobs over-seas. It also is moving jobs to "service companies", such as Aramark. And it's fraught with issues.

The employer often moves to a contrator model because they simply can't afford all their former employees. Either they down-zize or die. The former employee who is now a contractor ultimately feels betrayed, particularly when their new employment with the contract company means less money and less autonomy. The contract company just sees this as "another deal" and plows ahead, doing what they do.

No one looks real good in these things, particularly if the relationships have been long term. The employees would better serve themselves if they spent their time looking for new employment, not street theater. Striking for better wages/et al is one thing, street theater to embarrass your former employer is another.

Aramark's silence is not all that sinister in this story. Here they have a few new contract workers, and the first thing they do is engage in street theater with a customer. I'm not so sure they look like desirable employees?

Kevin McGrane

GTS has sold buildings and it makes no sense to maintain the same size maintenance staff. Their highest and best value is employment elsewhere.

It seems plausible to me, though, that some time in the past a person in authority at GTS might have given the workers some verbal assurances about the security of their jobs. For example, when GTS first switched to outsourcing that change could have created stress for the workers and someone at GTS might have said some soothing words. Sometimes being direct is the kindest policy. Again, this is merely a conjecture, but it's a question I have.

Oh dear. I hear good Episcopalians all digitally yelling at each other on this thread. I really don't know who's right . . . so I can only offer prayers. May we be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.

JC Fisher

Governments and private companies as well as religious institutions have been outsourcing support staff jobs for decades. The impetus seems to be in most cases a desire to keep their own management skills for what they do best: if you make chairs, you concentrate on making chairs, and outsource your IT, financial, and cleaning and property maintenance to organisations that do those things well. That's the theory, anyway.

There is a local borough in North London that has been accused of becoming a "skeleton borough", in that they have outsourced almost every function to an outside contractor. Trash pickup is by a private contractor. Traffic enforcement is by a private contractor. IT services, including tax collection, is by a private contractor.

What private companies do is for them to decide; the consequences of their actions need to fall on themselves and their shareholders or private owners. But what a governmental organisation or a religious institution does has a greater dimension that ought to be taken into account when considering outsourcing.

Reputational risk (see Giles Fraser's column in last week's Church Times) is a real danger when a charitable or religious organisation outsources functions. While the employees and their functions are controlled by an outside organisation, what happens to those employees and their functions will be connected to the religious organisation no matter how much they protest that it is only their contractor who is laying off workers/cutting their benefits or pay. That is what is happening at General.

The only good way to avoid this situation is not to outsource in the first place. Religious and charitable organisations are not, on the whole, factories. Outsourcing to save money means, for these institutions, turning a blind eye to how the contractors mean to make a profit out of the activity. Laying off workers, cutting their benefits or their pay or both is the way that most outsourcers make money out of a contract. If the religious organisation wants to have a just resolution to an outsourced contract problem, this dilemma has to be addressed: how to treat your employees justly and fairly while outsourcing their function to a for-profit organisation.

And yes, layoffs and "downsizing", "rightsizing", or just plain constructive dismissal is part of working life. That does not mean that in order to squeeze a few more pence out of a contract to benefit shareholders companies should be limiting hours, or pay, or benefits,or laying off people simply for economic gain.

These are all difficult questions. I do not pretend to have good answers. But surely the Gospel imperative is to treat everyone fairly and justly no matter their station in life. If "ethical outsourcing" is possible, that is what ought to be done.