Decency Is Not Optional

Negotiations between labor and management are over. The threat of a strike has passed, and the employees of Yeshiva University are expected to lay dormant for three years until the next round of the contract dance begins anew.

As a Jewish university, and an Orthodox one at that, YU is expected to strive for the higher moral ground in every possible aspect. That includes employee relations. There is no biblical injunction that exempts one from treating his workers with basic human decency. Yet the administration's attitude towards the very employees that keep this school running sometimes resembles that of taskmaster holding the whip. Countless horror stories abound - a security guard fired for chewing gum; a popular and helpful assistant hounded from her position by insensitive prying into her personal life; a worker abused for requesting leave to search for his family lost in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. And all that occurred in the past month.

Morality cannot be measured in economic terms; nickels and dimes are not interchangeable with ethical behavior. There is no justified need to continue with tightfisted tactics and callous, insensitive and soulless posturing when dealing with our employees.