“We Had to Work”: Revisiting the Essential Status of Campus Custodians

• In Event: Five Years Later: Reflecting on Institutional Attempts to Repair Pandemic-Era Harms

Abstract

Purpose and Framework:
This paper is guided by the following research question: How did campus custodians experience their work during the COVID-19 pandemic? This paper is informed by the work of the foundational Critical Race Theorist, Mari Matsuda (1987), and her work on “Looking to the Bottom” in particular. Matsuda (1987) argues that “adopting the perspective of those who have seen and felt the falsity of the liberal promise–can assist critical scholars” in learning more about inequity and justice (p. 324). Although I do take account for race in my analysis, I leverage Matsuda’s thought to explore how people occupying among the lowest paid positions in the university context experienced the COVID-19 pandemic and the implications of COVID-19 on their work after COVID-19 precautions subsided. Although the interviews were conducted two years ago, the author looks forward to learning from other panelists and audience members about how, if at all, they have seen universities treat, support, and portray “essential work” five years after the onset of the pandemic.

Methods
During the Spring and Summer of 2022 I conducted 19 semi-structured interviews with campus custodians at one public university in the midwest. All of the participants were working for the university during the onset and height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although I asked the participants a range of questions about their experience working at the university in general, I only present data about participants’ experiences of working as custodians during COVID-19 and their reflections about how their work, and perceptions of their work, changed after social-distancing and COVID-precautionary measures came to an end two years later.


Results:
I highlight three main themes in this paper: 1) the value of essential work, 2) the reality of essential work, and 3) the emotions of essential work. Concerning the value of essential work I highlight how some custodians advantageously used their furlough during COVID-19 and how their work was valued with rhetoric. Custodians reported that although they received small perks and pay raises for cleaning “COVID rooms” they felt less valued after COVID precautions subsided. I also highlight what participants’ day-to-day experiences were of working during the height of COVID and how COVID has forever changed their work as custodians. I conclude by amplifying the voices of custodians who expressed the gamut of emotions, especially fear, anger, and desperation, during their experience of working through the pandemic.


Significance:
Matsuda (1987) suggests that those “who have experienced discrimination speak with a special voice to which we should listen” (p. 324). Given the grossly inequitable pay campus custodians receive for their labor, we can learn a great deal about the contradictions within universities that profess to value equity.

Authors

• Antar A. Tichavakunda, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Fátima Andrade Martínez, University of California - Santa Barbara