Eastern students have grown accustomed to construction delays- they’re almost as common as the chain-link fences that accompany the delayed construction projects themselves.

However, while those fences provide students with ample warning that they may have to alter their campus commutes, the university did not provide students with ample warning of the latest Booth Library renovation delay.

In fact, had the company hired to move library materials back into Booth not sent student workers notices that they would not be needed over winter break, students would have gone home this week without ever knowing the library may not be open when classes resume on Jan. 7.

Those student workers, about 50 of them, face the most tangible loss of the public’s ignorance of the impending delay. The students said they were to be hired at $8.25 an hour for as many as 54 hours a week over at least four weeks.

A conservative estimate of 40 hours per week over four weeks would have those workers taking home a month’s salary of $1,320, which probably would have bought some nice holiday presents.

Unfortunately, those workers discovered Wednesday, via e-mail, that they would have to find a new source of winter break income less than two weeks before break starts. Now those students must start job hunting, as if completing class projects and studying for finals wasn’t enough pressure for the last week-and-a- half of the semester.

It didn’t have to be that way, but apparently providing student workers with ample employment notice isn’t as high a priority as keeping “contractors under the gun.”

Steve Shrake, Physical Plant director, said Thursday that he knew for about a month that the library’s completion date may have been prolonged because of a carpeting problem that began in October, but the delay wasn’t announced because his goal was to “drive contractors to meet dates.”

Well, while Shrake was trying to drive contractors, the student workers were being taken for a ride. If the university knew since October, the student workers should have known for almost as long so they could have used the last month to look for alternative employment, which may not be so easy in the current economy.

On a larger scale, it doesn’t send a good message that Eastern is willing to keep students in the dark to motivate contractors.

Now why should students believe the university when they’ve been told that their library, food court or any other building will be completed on time?