A crisis is brewing at Stanford that concerns the livelihoods of 16 campus workers. Simultaneously, it threatens the delivery of critical utilities to Stanford University and Stanford Hospitals. Stanford’s power, steam and chilled water are produced right here on campus by Cardinal CoGen, a plant that is owned by General Electric. While the plant typically delivers reliable service, its operations are threatened by an extremely high turnover rate among its operations and maintenance (O&M) staff — at least 25 percent leave the plant every year. In 2006, nearly half of the workforce left Cardinal CoGen to seek jobs elsewhere.

The result of this outrageous turnover is that equipment has gone unrepaired and crucial operations have recently been botched by overstretched and undertrained staff. Both of these problems have caused failures and lapses in service to Stanford and the Hospitals just in the past week.

Why does G.E. find retaining its workers at CoGen so difficult? The main reason is that the O&M staff receive wages between 15 percent and 33 percent below those paid to similar workers here at Stanford. The contract between the O&M staff and Cardinal CoGen management expires at the end of this month, and the two groups have entered into negotiations over the past three weeks. To call it “negotiations,” however, is generous: So far, CoGen management has turned an entirely deaf ear to workers’ proposals, dismissing them without offering either explanation or counter-proposal.

This situation cannot be tolerated by the Stanford community, both because of the injustice to CoGen workers who keep our campus running and because G.E.’s profit-driven negligence threatens their ability to do so. All members of the Stanford Community are encouraged to read more and to sign a petition at

http://www.stanford.edu/group/slac/CCPetition.html.

This op-ed was submitted on behalf of the Stanford Labor Action Coalition.