In the past six months, University of Kentucky’s leadership has laid out their plans for several significant transformations in the organization of our workforce. First, the administration is working to outsource facilities workers to a new corporate partner in a 30-year contract. This private company will manage everything from building maintenance and ground services to campus housing and dining. Second, the administration is centralizing hundreds of employees into its own limited liability corporation, Beyond Blue, as part of its Integrate Blue project. This project is being supported by Deloitte Consulting and was announced without any real dialogue and shared decision-making from our campus community.

These transformations are aimed at creating a leaner and more flexible UK workforce. Workers directly impacted by these changes have been publicly assured that they will retain their jobs, pay, and benefits, but there is ambiguity surrounding whether this verbal commitment will hold for the long-term and extend to situations where a worker is promoted or re-classified. New employees in these impacted units will be brought in under a different employment structure set by Beyond Blue and/or UK’s private partner (likely Aramark). The administration is presenting these changes as part of a visionary path forward for our university, where we are better maximizing the use of AI, cutting labor costs, and mitigating risk to the university by moving our campus communications into a more centralized structure. Administrators have also opined in town halls about the possibility of commercializing their new Beyond Blue workforce in a bid to compete with Kentucky businesses.

Our university has a unique and important relationship to the Commonwealth. By providing high quality jobs to working class members of Lexington and surrounding cities, the university helps to sustain not just the city that houses it, but also many of the rural communities it serves. By supporting us as workers, the university allows us, in turn, to support our campus and help it to fulfill its important mission. We, as a campus community, are still reeling from the disastrous effects of past management decisions, including the rushed centralization of our grants offices and the disempowerment of our campus governing bodies (two transformations that were also done vis-a-vis consultation with Deloitte).

It is time for UK workers and community stakeholders to have a seat at the table with administration so we can work together to build a powerful vision of our institution and its future. One where workers have fair pay and a say, where higher education is envisioned and defended as a public good, and where access to our campus is affordable for Kentuckians across the Commonwealth. We cannot realize this vision if we do not stand united. Join with us today by signing this letter demanding that President Capilouto:

• Abandon plans to outsource our facilities staff
• Halt plans for the re-assignment of our workforce into the Beyond Blue Corporation.