Petition Claims HR Condones Discrimination

Students who believe that Tuft’s management carries out improper practices within the work environment against employees who work within dining services have managed to create an online petition during the month of December. The petition was created on Change.org and because of it, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Human Resources is under investigation.

The petition states that, unfortunately, neither the Office of Equal Opportunity nor Human Resources have a supervisor to oversee their decisions.

The petition itself was addressed to Anthony Monaco, the University President. In the petition, claims are made against Tufts, stating that workers, especially those who work at the dining services, are not protected when they are complaining about being discriminated against. Their complaints are currently not anonymous which many people deem as unfair. As of lately, the petition has more than 220 signatures.

The petition was first designed by Gaia Weise, who claims that these issues have been overlooked and disregarded by the Office of Equal Opportunity and Human Resources as well. In the petition, Gaia Weise states, “We believe that Human Resources as well as the Office of Equal Opportunity are working to protect those who hold managerial positions and to silence the legitimate complaints of employees.”

Weise says that two employees of the dining hall had filed complaints in 2011 and that those two employees did not receive the right treatment from Human Resources. She claims that this is the reason why she started the petition, wanting to address the issue at hands.

The Executive Vice President, Patricia Campbell, wants Human Resources to have an outside consultant, someone who can create a workplace survey for the employees who work within the dining services. Campbell asks the Office of Equal Opportunity to start a specific training program for the dining services section, as a means of preventing discrimination against any employees.

Campbell wrote in an email message, “Tufts policy prohibits any sort of retaliation against an employee who has filed a complaint with the university.” She continued by writing, “I have full confidence in the processes that OEO and Human Resources have in place to foster a fair and supportive work environment and assist any employee with workplace issues.”

Weise believes that it is time for someone to take a stand and basically speak up. She says, “I didn’t really realize at the time that I could even file complaints based on discrimination, because they don’t exactly advertise the fact that you can go to Human Resources, go to the Office of Equal Opportunity.”

An employee of the dining services, Diego Laurenti Sellers, says that he fully supports this petition because he does, in fact, believe that there is not much oversight for these different organizations that work on the complaints made against specific companies.