Janitors in the forefront of American labor movement

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

New York Times, April 28, 2000

Janitors, Long Paid Little, Demand a Larger Slice

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

CHICAGO, April 26 -- Amid a record economic boom, janitors -- some of
America's lowest-paid, least-visible workers -- are taking to the streets
and the picket lines from coast to coast to demand a bigger share of the
nation's prosperity.

More than 4,000 janitors who clean office buildings in suburban Chicago
have been on strike for more than a week, demonstrating downtown and
blocking traffic to demand health insurance and a raise that would lift
their families out of poverty.

The battle spread from Los Angeles, where a three-week strike by 8,500
janitors ended on Monday after Cardinal Roger Mahony gave them his
outspoken support, helping them gain a raise of 26 percent over three years.

In San Diego, 300 janitors have been on strike for nearly three weeks to
press their demand for health insurance. In New York, 10,000 janitors
marched on Park Avenue two weeks ago to clamor for a raise. And more than
1,000 Silicon Valley janitors have held a series of rallies to hammer home
their complaint that in cleaning offices for some of the world's wealthiest
high-tech companies, they earn too little to afford decent housing or
support their families.

The Service Employees International Union, which represents 185,000
janitors, most of them immigrants, has tried to make them the poster child
for the gulf between rich and poor. Is it fair, the union demands, for
suburban Chicago janitors, cleaning buildings for people who often earn
hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, to get only $6.65 an hour, without
health insurance?

"Symbolically, we as a union want to open this century focusing on the
economic divide and bridging the income gap in this country," said Andrew
Stern, the union's president. "That's what all these contract disputes are
about. We want to make sure these janitors gain their fair share of a
booming economy and a booming real estate market."

For nearly a decade the union has maneuvered to have most contracts
covering janitors expire around the same time, enabling it to create a
single nationwide campaign on their behalf.

Although the number of strikes by American labor has been declining for
half a century, the Service Employees view this as an ideal time to call
strikes: the economic boom has left building owners and cleaning
contractors well able to afford large raises, the union believes, and
brought low-paid workers public sympathy.

Mike Garcia, president of the local in Los Angeles, said in the aftermath
of the strike there, "With Los Angeles as the backdrop, with its huge
disparity between rich and poor, with all the uninsured and immigrant
workers, we wanted to show that a group of workers can organize and lift
themselves out of poverty if they bring enough pressure."

Many building owners, under criticism that wages remain low during a
soaring real estate market, say janitors' pay is not up to them, but to the
cleaning contractors. And unionized cleaning contractors often say that if
they raise wages substantially, they will lose their profit margins and be
undercut by nonunion competitors.

The janitors of suburban Chicago began their strike on April 18, the day
after 5,500 janitors who work in downtown Chicago office buildings had
engaged in a daylong strike and won a contract that will raise their pay to
$12.50 an hour from $11.40 over three years. Those janitors already have
health insurance.

For the suburban janitors, the main question is why the downtown janitors
have better pay and benefits.

Barry White, chief negotiator for the suburban cleaning contractors,
attributed the disparity to the competition that these contractors, unlike
those in the heavily unionized downtown, face from nonunion companies. The
unionized suburban companies, Mr. White said, fear that the price of family
health coverage, about $1.78 an hour, might push costs so high that
nonunion competitors will underbid them for contracts.

"We think the full family coverage the union is seeking is far too
expensive a benefit for people earning $6.65 an hour," Mr. White said.

Among those people is Rosa Pederosa, a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant, who
stood alongside hundreds of other striking janitors blocking traffic in
suburban Oak Brook on Tuesday. Ms. Pederosa was excited, although also
somewhat worried, about being part of a strike that seeks two things she
badly wants: health insurance and higher wages. With a bugle blaring and
janitors drumming on the bottoms of plastic wastebaskets, the strikers
inched forward, next to an upscale mall, chanting, "Sí, se puede" ("Yes, we
can do it"), as Lexuses and BMW's backed up behind them.

Ms. Pederosa, who has three young children, takes home $440 every two weeks
for dusting Venetian blinds at night in a luxury office tower.

"We earn very little," she said. "I don't feel comfortable working near all
these really rich people.

The owner and the tenants make a ton of money and dress really well, but
earning $6.65 doesn't even cover expenses for my family."

Ms. Pederosa was taken to a hospital last month when she had problems
breathing. Now she has two big worries: she may have asthma and, without
health insurance or any wages coming in, she has to find a way to pay the
$360 hospital bill and the $150 ambulance bill.

For Graciella Chagoya, things are much the same.

Her 9-year-old son needed seven stitches after being hit in the head by a
baseball bat. The hospital bill was $1,500, and the ambulance bill $470.
Together, they amount to more than two months' take-home pay; she is trying
to pay down the bill by $100 a month.

"I don't understand why they don't want to give us better wages or health
insurance when I'm working so hard for them," she said.

Health coverage is the main issue in the strike in San Diego, where three
janitors and the president of the local have been fasting for six days.

"We're fasting," said Mary Grillo, the president, "to focus on the choices
that workers have to make every single day: Do I feed my family, or do I
pay my rent, or do I take my child to the doctor? These are not civilized
choices in a country like ours."

In all the disputes, the Service Employees union has worked hard to line up
community support to pressure both building owners and cleaning
contractors. In Los Angeles, the janitors received an anonymous $1 million
gift to sustain them during their strike, and whenever they marched through
the streets, workers came out of buildings, white-collar and blue-collar
alike, to cheer them on.

Cardinal Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, symbolized community support by
presiding over a Mass for the strikers. Describing the janitors as
"faceless, nameless, voiceless," the cardinal said they deserved a share in
"the wonderful fruitfulness of our economy." He praised them for making
"visible in our city an invisible problem": the exclusion of many from the
boom.

Labor leaders are looking for the success of the Los Angeles strike to take
on symbolic importance. Their hope is that the Los Angeles janitors, by
reminding the nation about the millions of people on the lower rungs, will
galvanize hotel maids, hospital aides and other low-wage workers to join
unions and fight for higher pay.

"Clearly the janitors won the hearts and souls and support of the overall
community," said Mr. Garcia, president of the Los Angeles local.

"It was definitely looked at as a David-versus-Goliath fight. We were in
the right place and right time for a visible fight."


Louis Proyect

(The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)