Support UNC Housekeepers in their demand to reassign abusive management, namely the Assistant Director of Housekeeping Services. UNC Housekeeper deserve management that can treat workers with a professional level of mutual respect.

We've exceeded our original goal of 125 signatures! Thank you!

Our new goal is 200!

UNC Housekeepers Deserve to be Safe from Threats and Abuse

On Friday, September 2, at 12pm UNC housekeepers, accompanied by students, faculty, and community members, delivered a petition to Chancellor Thorp at South Building on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill. The petition demands that the Assistant Director of Housekeeping Services, Tonya Sell, be reassigned. The controversy around Tonya Sell became public during Fall of 2010 when she instated what is known as the no sit-down policy.  About eight housekeepers filed a group grievance citing that Tonya Sell created a hostile work environment in the UNC housekeeping department, but Human Resources denied the grievance.  

Housekeepers continually name Tonya Sell as a significant aggressor, responsible for perpetuating an abusive and unfair work environment at the University. Odessa Davis, a housekeeper under the supervision of Tonya Sell, says “Tonya Sell is not cut out to be our director. She doesn’t respect housekeepers and hardly treats us like human beings.” Housekeepers list several other complaints in the petition regarding Ms. Sell’s problematic leadership, including: 

• Lack of professionalism, demonstrated by not showing up for meetings that she schedules with employees
• Threatening employees
• Verbal abuse
• Forging employees’ signatures

Housekeepers are organizing with the hope that Ms. Sell will be reassigned to a more appropriate job where she can no longer harass and intimidate other University employees and engage in inappropriate administrative practices. Other community and student groups have endorsed the petition including Black Workers for Justice, Student Action with Workers, SEANC District 25, UE 150, Chapel Hill/Carrboro NAACP, Triangle Branch of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and the Chapel Hill Human Rights Center. Laurel Ashton, a leader of the student group Student Action with Workers adds, “The fact that Tonya Sell has remained a supervisor, despite such serious allegations raised throughout the Housekeeping Department, illustrates the greater problem that Chancellor Thorp, Carolyn Elfland, and other University administrators do not take responsibility for creating a safe and fair work environment for UNC housekeepers.”

For more information:

Laurel Ashton, Student Action with Workers - (828) 713-3864        
Odessa Davis, UNC Housekeeper - (919) 641-4011