Letters: Labor unfairness at USC

Re “USC made this offer a no-brainer,” May 18

In The Times’ front-page celebration of USC’s poaching of UCLA’s top neuroscientists, a story previously reported by The Times, one of the top-paid future employees remarked on how kind a USC administrator was even to the janitors, remembering their families’ names.

I’m sure the janitors would trade such niceties for a fairer deal. Only a few months into a new contract, the company to which USC has outsourced janitorial work cut back on jobs, forcing remaining workers to do more on low wages.

Instead of an investigation into USC’s labor practices, we get cute stories about the “courtship” of eminent neuroscientists, including details of the dinner (chicken with leeks and mustard breadcrumbs) over which the wooing occurred.

Tania Modleski

West Hollywood

The writer is a professor of English at USC.

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