Faculty Call On SFU to Stop Outsourcing Janitorial Work

As Simon Fraser University considers a new contract for cleaning services, a group of staff and faculty members is calling for the university to stop outsourcing food and janitor services.

Since it was established, the university has contracted out its cleaning services. It is currently considering bids for a contract that could last up to nine years.

On Sept. 1, on behalf of 67 faculty and SFU community members, associate professor Enda Brophy sent an open letter to the university and the provincial government calling on the university to change course.

“Beyond the misuse of public funds, outsourcing is morally dubious from a labour rights perspective,” the letter said. “The situation is even more disturbing given the repeated public reports of misconduct by the contractor.”

But Jeff Hodson, a spokesperson for SFU, said in an email the university doesn’t have the capacity to bring janitorial services in-house — and that it wouldn’t be financially viable.

“Outsourced service delivery remains the most effective and sustainable approach for meeting the university's operational needs,” Hodson said.

Still, support for the letter continues to grow. At the time of publication, more than 100 of SFU’s approximately 1,100 faculty members had signed on to the letter. It’s the latest in a series of calls for SFU to bring janitors and food service workers into direct employment.

Contract workers and some students and faculty at the university have been warning SFU administration for years that contracting out food and janitorial services has led to poor working conditions.

In 2022, a coalition of students, staff and faculty members called Contract Worker Justice published a report based on 21 anonymous worker testimonials sounding the alarm on excessive workloads, inadequate health and safety protections and discriminatory and abusive management practices.

The group presented their findings to university directors that year.

Hodson said that between 2021 and 2022, the university conducted an internal review of the feasibility of bringing janitorial services in-house.

The report was conducted by Deloitte. An excerpt of the report provided to The Tyee said insourcing janitorial work could promote equity and diversity, reduce janitor turnover and increase SFU’s control over service quality.

But it also outlined risks. The report noted SFU has no history of running janitorial or food service operations, which could lead revenue levels to drop as the university builds that capacity. It warns insourcing, and offering staff access to paid absences, could mean staff show up less frequently.

And Deloitte warned the cost of these services could increase, leading to more expensive food on campus.

“In most scenarios, janitorial costs increase and food service profits decrease,” the report said.

“Furthermore, food prices may increase to cover losses.”

But Brophy, a member of Contract Worker Justice, said the review was “profoundly flawed.”

“Much of the knowledge that was produced was actually not made public,” he said. “We are warned against doing that in our scholarship, and yet the university relies on that process to justify a decision, which to the entire community has continued to seem dubious.”

SFU declined to share the full report with The Tyee.

In the four years since, the university has continued to contract out its janitorial work to Best Service Pros (as it has for the past 15 years) and its food service work to Chartwells.

Staff told The Tyee there have been no changes since Contract Worker Justice’s report to SFU — and that their working conditions are continuing to deteriorate.

Last year, Contract Worker Justice and other cleaners renewed their call for the university to directly employ janitors after Kulbir Kaila, a 61-year-old cleaner working on the Burnaby campus, died on the job.

In July, the university announced it was looking for its next janitorial services contract. The current contract is set to expire in April 2027 and cannot be renewed.

In the announcement, the university said it wants a contractor that meets service expectations, pays a living wage, operates with transparency and contributes positively to the community.

The contract will have a five-year term, with two opportunities for a two-year extension. Hodson said the university estimates it will spend $10 million per year for cleaning services at its three campuses in Burnaby, Vancouver and Surrey.

The deadline for bids closed Aug. 27.

Brophy said some faculty members are disappointed that the university was looking for a new contract.

“Given the news that SFU was doubling down on the practice of contracting out cleaning services, some of us decided that it was time to publicly express our frustration and dissatisfaction,” he said.

He added that contracting out these services shields universities from taking responsibility over working conditions, health and safety issues and how janitors are treated on campus.

The letter cites reporting from The Tyee that uncovered a pattern of managerial bullying and harassment of contract workers.

“These workers are in so many respects less powerful than faculty,” Brophy said. “Universities feel like they are able to give them shoddy treatment, and I find that profoundly upsetting, especially for a public institution like SFU.”

The letter also calls on the province to help resolve the situation, citing the provincial government’s 2021 decision to end health authorities’ cleaning service contracts with private companies.

“The provincial government has a role to play here,” Brophy said. “We are giving hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money to a private contractor to give a public institution bad service, with the track record that we all have in front of our eyes.”

The Tyee requested comment from the provincial Labour and Post-Secondary Education ministries, but a spokesperson for the B.C. Labour Ministry said in an email there was no policy connection to the letter.

Brophy said he expects the university to make a decision on janitorial services this fall.

“The window is closing for SFU to do the right thing,” he said.