In a cost saving measure that was incorporated into the 2010-2011 B-R school budget, 84 custodians of the school system are out of a job with the district. About 6 of those are signing on with the service company to which responsibility for custodial services has been outsourced, Pritchard Industries, Inc.
Discharged custodians will be either collecting unemployment insurance; going into retirement if they had enough years of service; or they will transition to other endeavors. At least one custodian is known to have signed up with another local school district.
Laid-off custodians were members of the Bridgewater-Raritan Education Association. During internal union discussions, representatives for those custodians had made an offer of significant wage cuts in order to keep their positions. But it appears that no real effort was made by the union’s leadership to save those jobs.
The offer of wage concessions was never seriously entertained by the B-R School Board and its Administration, because the savings from out-sourcing were said to be larger than those resulting from proposed custodial wage cuts, particularly in the second and outer years of the out-sourcing contract.
On its web site, Pritchard describes itself as “one of the world’s largest privately held service companies. Headquartered in New York City, [it operates] throughout the Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest United States.”
Pritchard Industries, boasts a “98% client retention rate,” and “has over 12,000 full and part time employees in over 1,200 service locations.” Its web site further points out that the firm “specializes in cleaning commercial office buildings,” and that “approximately 90% of [its] revenues are derived from these accounts - which comprise 95% of [its] portfolio by square footage.”
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