Oct. 17 – New Mexico Highlands University administrators haven’t done enough to ensure faculty, staff and students are safe after a release of hazardous chemicals in the university’s science building, union officials say – and it’s time to fix the problem to be solved.
On Oct. 1, faculty and staff union heads filed a complaint with Highlands President Neil Woolf, alleging that the university had failed to remediate unsafe chemical storage, cleaning and disposal practices.
In addition to seventeen other remedies, Kathy Jenkins and Andrea Crespin – the presidents of NMHU’s faculty and staff associations, respectively – demanded in their complaint that three university facilities officers be placed on paid administrative leave pending the resolution of all investigations into the matter . .
Under the latest version of the faculty union’s collective bargaining agreement, Woolf or his representative must schedule a hearing on the complaint within 10 business days of receipt. That didn’t happen and the clock ran out earlier this week, said Mary Parr-Sánchez, president of the New Mexico chapter of the National Education Association, which represents Highland workers in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers-New Mexico. According to her, the lack of response is “not acceptable”.
In an email to The New Mexican, David Lepre, Highlands’ vice president of marketing, communications and government relations, declined to comment on the complaint, calling it a “personnel issue.”
“It is a violation of the law for the university to comment publicly on personnel matters,” Lepre wrote.
The complaint comes amid an investigation into the storage and handling of chemicals at the Las Vegas, NM, school following the September 14 death of custodian Martin Lujan, 54.
Whether Lujan’s death was related to chemical exposure while working at NMHU’s Ivan Hilton Science and Technology Building remains unknown. His cause of death will be determined by the state Office of the Medical Examiner, which will conduct autopsy and toxicology tests.
The building itself will remain closed until the end of the semester while the leak “has been contained and is being resolved,” Woolf announced in a campuswide email earlier this month.
Nevertheless, Parr-Sánchez said, “We want to make sure that everything possible is done to ensure that, at some point in the future, what is happening and what happened at the university will never happen again.”
Jenkins and Crespin accuse the university administration of violating an article on “safe working conditions” in the faculty union’s collective labor agreement.
The agreement requires faculty members to report violations of institutional security rules. It then goes on to say, “A competent administrator…will promptly investigate and, if necessary, remedy such circumstances in a timely manner.”
The “crux” of the complaint, Parr-Sánchez said: faculty members reported the matter to Associate Vice President for Facilities, Planning, Maintenance and Management Sylvia Baca; Environmental Health and Safety Manager Lee Martinez; and custodian Freddie Martinez.
The union claims all three failed to investigate or resolve the problem; According to the complaint, they should be placed on administrative leave pending the completion of all investigations into the matter.
“The people accused of negligence don’t have to be right in the mix of the investigation,” Parr-Sánchez said.
Baca, Lee Martinez and Freddie Martinez did not return calls seeking comment Thursday.
The complaint also requires the council to repair or install additional safety equipment, update chemical storage and disposal procedures and establish communication and management plans for future emergency incidents.
“We believe that NMHU’s primary responsibility is to provide a safe and healthy environment for students, faculty, staff and community members,” Jenkins and Crespin wrote in the complaint. “Students cannot learn and teachers cannot teach if they do not feel safe and are afraid.”
Now that Woolf has run out of time to respond to the complaint, the next step in the resolution process is binding arbitration, according to the faculty union’s collective bargaining agreement.
Arbitration is not Parr-Sánchez’s preferred method of resolving the issue. It is a costly and time-consuming process, she says, and she would prefer the university and its employees come to the table to discuss a common interest: the safety of staff and students.
“We would like to come in as equal partners to talk about what needs to happen in the future,” Parr-Sánchez said.
She added: “The President, it is in his interest to engage in a timely conversation with his employees, as represented by their unions. He should be willing to do that, and I don’t understand why he isn’t.”
