Porters fight back at student spy campaign
Porters at Trinity College are fighting back after a student spy campaign was launched to stop them sleeping on the job. Following a serious security breach last term, former JCR President Richard Appleton asked Trinity students to report any sleeping or absent porters to him immediately. One Trinity porter has attacked the spy campaign, claiming that it is responsible for “low morale” among porters.
The informal monitoring was instigated in 3rd week last term after Appleton emailed the JCR about college security. In the email he described college security as “rubbish”, and wrote, “Recently, night porters have been completely incompetent and have been doing what most other people do at night - sleep - rather than their job”.
He said, “In future, could anyone returning to college late at night, who finds that the lodge lights are off, or that the night porter is not maintaining a visible presence in the front lodge, please send me an email with the time, date and your complaint.” Last term five men tried to break into the bedroom of a first year student while she was asleep. Appleton said, “The porter at the time didn’t do anything about that.
“These were reported to the college authorities and I believe that action was taken against the porters on these occasions”. A porter at Trinity has attacked the student campaign, claiming that it has caused a drop in morale among the porters. He said, “If you can find me a human being who can stay in one place for twelve hours without eating, drinking or urinating I’d be very interested, and so would John Radcliffe.
“Morale among the porters at the moment is very low, and this is the reason why”. Porters from other colleges have shown their support for the Trinity porters this week. One Exeter College porter said, “If you have a long shift then it’s not reasonable to expect them to be in the lodge all the time. “We can hardly ask students to monitor the lodge when they can’t even monitor themselves.
A porter at St Anne’s said, “I’m surprised that the students have the time to monitor porters. I’d have thought they’d be working instead.” Following Appleton’s request for evidence, he received several reports. One first year student at Trinity sent Appleton a photo of the empty Porter’s Lodge. Appleton now claims that the spy campaign was successful. “There were a couple of incidents last term when students caught the night porter sleeping.
These were reported to the college authorities and I believe that action was taken against the porters on these occasions”.
3rd May 2007