Husband and wife Mehereteab Mengistu and Lemlel Ghile have been working for the UW for 14 years, but last month, their world was turned upside down.

Ghile works days in the Health Sciences Building as a lab-shift helper. When she comes home from her shift in the afternoon, Mengistu gets ready to leave for his work as a UW custodian in the same building.

Mengistu works the swing shift, from 4:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., so that he can take care of their four children during the daytime.

On March 25, it was announced that nearly all swing-shift custodians were being forced to move to a daytime shift, effective May 18.

“We can’t both work the day shift,” Mengistu said. “We can’t afford day care, and we can barely afford our mortgage. I don’t know what to do.”

Mengistu is one of 85 swing-shift custodians who received the same message that day.

The decision to move swing-shift custodians to the daytime shift has been an ongoing project in the custodial division of UW Facilities Services, as the department works to save on operating costs.

“It’s been a long-term trend of ours to move buildings to the day shift. We’ve been doing this since 1997,” said Gene Woodard, director of the custodial division of Facilities Services at the UW. “The current budget crisis we’ve been facing has accelerated this and prompted the move now.”

To most in the department, the move seems sudden and unexpected.

“Everybody was absolutely shocked and flabbergasted,” said UW custodian Ken Mills. “We didn’t have any idea this was coming. I was upset and angry that they would dump this on us in such a disingenuous way.”

Until now, swing-shift custodians have made the move to the daytime shift voluntarily.

“In 1997, we had 35 custodians on days, and now we have 186 custodians on days,” Woodard said. “So we’ve had success.”

That still leaves nearly a third of all custodians at the UW on the swing shift.

“Those are the people that didn’t go to day shift before because they simply couldn’t,” Mills said. “They couldn’t because they had certain family arrangements or were working second jobs during the daytime.”

In addition to a dramatic shift in work hours, swing-shift custodians who are switched to day shift would also have to take a pay cut.

Each swing-shift custodian would lose approximately $170 per month in shift differential pay if the switch is made. The increased costs of daytime parking would result in another $70 cut in custodians’ monthly salary.

Pay, however, isn’t the primary issue for custodians working the swing shift. They simply want to keep their hours.

“We’re willing to make concessions that will give [the university] the same savings through another method,” Mills said.

Ideas for concessions are still being discussed, but Mills said that swing-shift custodians won’t be willing to make the concessions unless the university can show that the concessions are the only way to save costs and prevent layoffs.

And custodians aren’t the only ones upset.

Many non-custodial staff and faculty members have expressed empathy for the custodians and their families and have their own concerns as well.

After the shift change, cleaning hours for custodians would be at times when hallways are crowded and classrooms are busy.

“My lab has 32 people working at lab benches with highly fragile constructs and reagents all day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.,” said UW professor of medicine and genome sciences Mary-Claire King. “If these custodians had to work around 32 people, it would be madness.”

King runs a laboratory in the Health Sciences Building, one of the buildings that could soon see the transition.

King’s laboratory brings in millions of dollars each year as a result of her federally funded grants. She said productivity wouldn’t be at its best unless she had a clean and tidy lab.

“We have spectacularly cleaned labs,” King said. As a result of the transition, “we wouldn’t have rooms that are as clean, and we would not have people that are as productive.”

The new shift would require custodians to start work at 5 a.m., giving them three hours to complete tasks that require an empty facility — tasks that swing-shift janitors now have eight hours to complete.

UW custodians are concerned about the quality of work they would be able to do under these circumstances.

“Our job is to provide a clean and healthy learning and working environment,” said UW custodian Kevin McArthur. “It’s not to do a slap-dash job three hours before the clients arrive in the morning.”

It is typical for custodians to avoid cleaning rooms that are filled with people.

“After the clients show up, the [custodians] disappear,” McArthur said. “The custodians realize the clients don’t want them, so we’re not going to be using any equipment that’s noisy.”

Woodard, however, said the transition shouldn’t be a problem.

Some buildings that are now on day shift — customers who initially resisted the change — are satisfied with the service day-shift custodians provide.

“We have had success moving buildings to daytime service [in the past],” Woodard said. “We have a good history with working with clients and finding out what their exact needs are.”

Woodard said the custodial division is willing to work with clients such as King, who have specific needs.

However, aside from pay and logistical issues, another concern is the security provided by UW custodians.

David Boulware, chairman of the physics department, said there is a sense of security that swing-shift custodians provide at night. Some classes run until late hours of the night, and custodians oftentimes double as security guards, keeping an eye out for suspicious activity.

“We’ve always been anxious to have them work the shift they currently work,” Boulware said. “They help provide good security.”

Boulware has taken a role in the past to ward off attempts to move swing-shift custodians by writing letters of support for them.

Woodard recognizes these side benefits but reiterates the main function of custodians.

“I’m aware that the custodians at night do provide a presence that might deter certain activities,” he said. “But our primary mission is to provide a clean and sanitary environment to the campus, and we need to be focused on how to best do that.”

Still, King doesn’t believe this decision supports that primary mission.

“This is a very dumb idea,” King said. “Someone has not thought this through.”

Tomorrow, union representatives from Local 1488 of the Washington Federation of State Employees, the union UW swing-shift custodians belong to, will be sitting down with the UW to discuss alternative proposals.

“We’re going to discuss what other methods they could obtain the same savings by, without having to switch people from swing shift,” Mills said. “We’re going to fight to the end on this.”

Reach reporter Eric Staples at news@dailyuw.com.