COLLEGE PARK -- Joan Wood has spent the winter slammin doors.
Her anger erupted in January, when she learned that notwithstanding 20 years of service as chief aide to the dean of arts and humanities at the University of Maryland College Park, the governor wanted her to work 4 1/2 more hours a week with no extra pay. "I felt devalued," she said. "Insulted."
Requiring two-thirds of all state employees to work those extra hours without pay is part of the plan advanced by Gov. William Donald Schaefer to keep the state afloat in the face of a shrinking state budget. The governor and his personnel secretary, Hilda E. Ford, say it will increase productivity at a time when they can't afford to fill vacancies.
But Mrs. Wood and five colleagues at the College Park campus have vowed to fight. To them, it comes down to whether a group of people -- most of them female -- should be singled out to work what amounts to an extra 29 days a year for free.
Come July 1, about 44,000 employees -- roughly 30,000 women and 14,000 men -- will start working an extra 4 1/2 hours every week for no extra pay, triggering, for some, a reshuffling of their personal lives, from child care arrangements to second jobs. Those employees affected include clerks, secretaries and administrative aides, the lowest-paid employees at state agencies and public universities.
"We have no problem with working 40 hours," Linda Scovitch, chief aide to the vice president of student affairs, told several co-workers in April. "But pay us."
At the table with Mrs. Wood and Ms. Scovitch were Gloria Chawla, a librarian; Joan McKee, aide to the chief academic officer; Carol Prier, aide to the dean of the college of engineering; and Lynne Thomas, aide to the vice president for the budget.
In their bid to see the pain of budget cuts spread around more evenly, these women have taken actions they say they never would have considered before: writing to lawmakers, talking in front of TV cameras, plotting strategy behind closed doors -- even filing a federal discrimination complaint.
And in that time, Mrs. Wood, a 51-year-old secretary, and the others have seen themselves transformed from mild-mannered professionals to leaders in a legal fight over what they see as fair labor practices and civil rights.
"It's brought out things in people they never knew they had," said Ms. McKee. "They feel empowered."
The women say they got involved because they listened to lower-paid workers such as Sherri Allen, a payroll clerk, who won't be able to afford a baby sitter for her three children for the additional hours she will have to work, and Elva Eilertson, an aide in the art department, who needs time to dress her 85-year-old mother every morning.
"We see a lot of what goes by and felt the obligation to try to protect people who don't have information," said Ms. McKee, 40.
After three months, the women have won support from College Park President William E. Kirwan, faculty and students.
"It will do irreparable damage," said Richard Herman, dean of computer, mathematical and physical sciences, who gathered other deans last month to draft a letter to the Board of Regents.
He and other deans say they are worried about more than morale: The new mandate will mean the campus will be offering wages that are as much as 30 percent below those for comparable jobs at local schools and county offices.
The women's greatest disappointment so far is not that the state is asking them to work the equivalent of more than five extra workweeks a year for free; it is that the public -- even on their own campus -- does not share their outrage.
"The public thinks we are a bunch of whiners and complainers who don't want to work 40 hours a week," said Ms. McKee. "If we asked them to work more hours without pay, they would feel differently."
In their offices, these six women are right-hand people to key university officials. They says they love their jobs, and they understood this year when, because of the economy, they didn't get a cost-of-living raise.
But in the last decade, their research shows, their salaries have been outstripped by inflation to the point that they make 10 percent less now than they did in 1980. At the same time, the women say, faculty salaries have increased 26 percent. Most of the workers affected have reached the top of their pay scales, and with a 40-hour week, hourly wages will revert to 1987 levels.
Off campus, the women have confronted the public's perception of state employees such as themselves as clock-watchers. On campus, the University of Maryland regents heard Ms. McKee describe the policy's impact on women -- and then, at the same meeting, promptly voted to institute the increase in hours. "They could have at least shown a little sympathy," Ms. Thomas said after the January meeting.
But their letter-writing campaign seemed to hit home: In February, less than a month after Mr. Schaefer announced his 40-hour workweek plan, he changed his mind.
Then in March he quietly reactivated the plan, this time giving university regents and heads of other state agencies until July 1 to implement it unless they can think of a better way to contend with the state's budget difficulties.
In hallways and offices, the six women buttonholed campus budget officials to find out how much it would cost to pay state university employees for the extra hours -- $15 million, according Charles F. Sturtz, Ms. Thomas' boss.
Appearing before a special committee examining the issue for the Board of Regents, the women suggested that instead of having some employees work the equivalent of 29 days for free, the regents should pay affected workers for a 40-hour week and raise the money by instituting a five-day unpaid furlough for all.
So far they have found little support for the furlough idea from the chancellor's office or from the campus chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. AFSCME officials say they oppose the furlough proposal because it would unfairly penalize some workers, such as housekeepers, who are already working 40 hours for $12,000 and up.
Nor have the women found support for their cause in other parts of the state university system: On some campuses, those who would be affected said they were content because salaries there have risen higher than in the rest of the community; on other campuses, some staffers were afraid they'd be fired for taking on the governor.
In April, they again wrote the governor and his personnel secretary. Mr. Schaefer said he could understand distress over changes that "are a departure from a comfortable routine." But he defended his plan as better than unpaid furloughs because of the volume of work that needs to be done.
If productivity doesn't go up and overtime go down, he said, "layoffs will have to be considered again."
In her letter, Ms. Ford told the women that, considering the
economic outlook, they should feel fortunate to have a job. In an interview with The Sun, the personnel secretary said 40 hours is the standard workweek in private industry and most people think that's reasonable.
The official response to the group's letters infuriated Ms. Chawla. A single mother of two, Ms. Chawla, 46, had joined a picket line for the first time in her life when the issue arose in January. Then, in early March, she chose a different tack.
"I am a librarian," she said. "The thing I do when I get upset about something is I go to the library and look it up somewhere. I research."
She learned from her research that she needed evidence. When the state personnel office refused to give her data, she posed as a staff member for a lawmaker to get answers.
Among the documents she found were those showing the disproportionate impact on women as well as the conditions that staff members had agreed to when they accepted their jobs.
On March 28, Ms. Chawla and Connie Powell, a state Department of Transportation employee, filed a discrimination complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Baltimore.
And just last week, a voluminous package of evidence the women hope will support their other main issue -- the breaking of an implied contract -- arrived in the Washington offices of a labor law expert.
On Wednesday, the Maryland Classified Employees Association, which represents the workers affected by the governor's plan, filed a lawsuit alleging similar violations.
Also last week, 762 female workers at the College Park campus signed a letter to the president, the regents, the chancellor and the governor protesting the plan.
It is now up to the regents and the heads of state agencies to
come up with alternatives. The regents are expected to hear a report on the issue in coming weeks. Lawsuits and the federal civil rights complaint are expected to drag on for months.
"I am not optimistic," said Mrs. Wood, who wonders what will happen to the campus if the campaign fails. All around her, staffers are saying they will "sit at their desk with their hands folded" during what they call Schaefer Time.
Some are talking about work stoppages, but Mrs. Wood, who went to secretarial school at a time when hats and white gloves were mandatory, says that is not her style.
Long ago she reached the top of her salary scale, and now the rewards for work well done are sympathetic words.
"You do reach a point when you feel so constantly kicked in the teeth you don't want to give anymore," she said. "There isn't any reward for you. That's how I see it now."
Feeling the pinch
Here's how the planned 40-hour workweek would affect one College Park staffer
Employee: Sherri L. Allen
Age: 31
Marital status: single mother
Children: Amy, 10; Jeremy, 8;
Megan, 16 months
Salary: $16,890
Job: Account Clerk II,
McKeldin Library,
College Park
Effective hourly wage
at 35.5 hours a week: $9.15
at 40 hours a week: $8.12
Cost of extended baby-sitting:
annually: $3,000
hourly: $1.44
Hourly wage with added baby-sitting costs factored in:
$6.68
Drop in disposable income:
27 percent