First Quote

Nova Southeastern University marchers rally for wages, jobs
Protesters interrupted dinner on Las Olas Boulevard on Saturday, calling for better working conditions and higher wages for workers at Nova Southeastern University.
BY TRENTON DANIEL AND NIALA BOODHOO
tdaniel@MiamiHerald.com

Marching past the al fresco restaurants, galleries and banks on Las Olas Boulevard, about 200 people rallied Saturday to protest conditions for cleaning and maintenance workers at Nova Southeastern University.

''I'm struggling to survive,'' said Fritz Hector, 42, who said he and his wife recently lost their Nova cleaning jobs. ``This is why I'm here today, to get my job back.''

The two-hour rally -- timed to coincide with the peak dinner hour -- aimed to call attention to the plight of workers like Hector and to call for higher wages at the university, whose main campus is in Davie.

NSU workers -- mostly doing cleaning, maintenance and landscaping -- voted last fall to join the Service Employees International Union. Days later, NSU told the contractor that employed the workers, Unicco, that it was rebidding the cleaning contract. It eventually replaced Unicco with several smaller firms, and workers were told to reapply for their jobs.
In February, about two-thirds of the workers were rehired by the new contractors, the largest of which is TCB Systems, which has not said publicly if it will recognize the union.

NSU spokesman Dave Dawson said the university went through the formal process of seeking bidders for its contracts.
''It's business as usual,'' Dawson said. ``I think the rebidding process . . . began well before there was any card check union vote.''

On Friday, the union said one of the new, smaller contractors, Limousines of South Florida, had agreed to recognize the NSU unit and its bargaining authority. The company employs about a dozen workers to run a shuttle service on campus.
''We're absolutely delighted that Limousines of South Florida has agreed to negotiate with the workers to create a standard that provides them and their families with higher wages and benefits,'' union spokeswoman Renee Asher said last week. ``We hope the rest of their contractors will follow their lead and that Nova will do the same.''

On Saturday, a rotating cast of speakers took to a portable stage at Stranahan Park in Fort Lauderdale.

`LOUD AND CLEAR'

''Nova Southeastern University is wrong,'' said Bishop Victor Curry, president of Miami-Dade's NAACP. ``We must say it loudly, and we must say it clearly.''

Lending some humor, union speaker Monica Russo told the crowd to program the phone number of NSU President Ray Ferrero Jr. into their cellphones: ``Put it on speed dial.''

The Rev. Al Sharpton, embroiled in the firing of radio shock jock Don Imus, was slated to speak at the rally, but didn't come. A spokeswoman said Sharpton canceled the trip, fearing bad weather in the Northeast would prevent him from attending other obligations.

WAITING FOR PAY

Some former NSU workers said they have waited two months for paychecks from the new contractors. Former janitor Gladys Bellune worked for TCB for almost two weeks before she was fired. So did Franz Nerette, who said he quit his second week because the company was mistreating Haitian colleagues who couldn't speak English.

''This is America, I didn't know that people could work and not get paid,'' said Bellune, who had cleaned the school's psychology department.

Officials at Miami-based TCB couldn't be reached for comment.

Union representatives said they are filing grievances on behalf of the workers who were not paid. Union organizer Margarette Nerette said she has found at least seven workers who say they have not been paid.

Dawson said the university had checked with its contractors who said all contract workers had been paid. He added he was not aware if that applied to former workers at the company.



While I feel that a better quote may have been used to follow up the lead, I think that it does a good job of appealing to the emotions of the reader. "I'm struggling to survive" is quite a strong statement, which dramatizes the event a little bit and allows the readers to understand how difficult this situation has been for a number of people that work at NSU.

As mentioned above, the quote does a good job of conveying emotion. While mostly everybody would be having a difficult in such a situation, some people may not feel that they are "struggling to survive," thus the quote definitely does not state a hardcore fact.

The verb attribution is "said," which I believe does the job well enough.

The source of the quote is a former employee of NSU. The source does help support the lead in the story, but I feel that a stronger source could have been a leader of the rally or someone of a higher position involved in the situation.