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Justice for Low-Wage Janitors
Details TBA
Our protests at the Selig building (see "Past Actions" above) are making
an impact. Other Seattle downtown building owners are not following
commercial real estate mogul Martin Selig's recent move to undercut the
living wages, benefits, and retirement of low wage immigrant janitors. Previous rumors rumbled that Selig's antics would start a wave of similar attempts.
Recently, Selig's management team called SEIU Local 6 leadership to set
up a meeting. At the meeting, management promised "to do the right
thing" but have not acted yet. - according to Real Change, 3/03.
Allied Building Services, the anti-union janitorial contractor used by Selig, just lost the Safeco Building in Bellevue, a flagship account, to the Somers janitor contractor. Somers is a union contractor in other Western states but not yet in Washington. Talks are in progress with
Somers to stretch the union contract to this account. We expect Somers
"to do the right thing" too.
We helped SEIU collect over $600 in donations for seven janitors fired
by Allied for union organizing at a Bellevue office building owned by
Equity Office Buildings. With these funds, the fired janitors were
reimbursed all of their lost wages and recently a unionized contractor
named Seattle Building Maintenance has hired most of them.
Currently, most janitors in Seattle's downtown office buildings are
immigrants who speak more than 26 different languages and come from
nations as diverse as Laos, Somalia, Bosnia, and Mexico. Eighty percent
of these janitors earn about $20,000 a year, with family medical
benefits, and a pension because they organized for it in a street heat
union campaign called Justice for Janitors. The 2,300 members of the
janitors union, SEIU Local 6, would like to see these conditions of
dignity extended to their sub-poverty wage coworkers in suburban office
buildings. These buildings are in wealthy areas that have become
virtual sweatshops by night such as the Eastside. Already, Eastside
janitors are staging mini-strikes for better conditions and union
recognition.
Yet some building owners want to use the current backlash against
immigrants to bolster their anti-worker strategies before the Seattle
master union contract is set to expire on June 30, 2003. Building
owners often try to switch contractors as a shell game to avoid
organizing efforts and paying living wages. Anti-worker contractors in
turn hire mostly undocumented workers to intimidate the most vulnerable
in our workforce.
To win union standards and prevent erosion of gains, we must use
innovative strategies and direct action tactics to hold building owners
accountable. Seattle janitors and WA JwJ have proven that we can win
with this approach during the mid-1990's as well as last year when
Boston janitors teamed with Massachusetts Jobs with Justice.
In the Boston victory, the community demonstrated deep support for immigrant
workers, for which no one would have dared hope one year after September
11. All the more impressive was the fact that the coalition which
supported the janitors was broader and more diverse than the city had
ever seen before; it gave a sense of what a real movement for social and
economic justice in Boston might look like.
Janitors Struggle for Justice in Selig Buildings
Multi-millionaire Seattle building owner Martin Selig recently forced
out of his 14 downtown buildings many immigrant union member janitors.
Members of SEIU 6 had worked in these buildings for over ten years and
made over $20,000 a year, family health benefits, and a pension. For a
marginal profit increase, Selig switched from union to nonunion janitor
contractors. The newly hired nonunion janitor contractor pays 25% less
with no health insurance or retirement plan, and requires janitors to
clean the equivalent of 20 3-bedroom houses a night. Replacement
janitors have reported that the nonunion contractor has violated health
and safety laws and wage and hour laws.
Decent wages and benefits for janitors costs tenants just pennies per
square foot. Selig's decision affects all janitors in the Puget Sound -
he lowered the union density in downtown that was at 85% and threatens
the standards for all 2,300 janitors whose union contract comes up for
renegotiation in June. Further, this industry is one of the only jobs
where low-wage immigrant workers have the option to organize and win
better standards.
For more information on the Justice for Janitors campaign locally, check out SEIU 6's website. For information on J4J campaigns around the country, go to National Jobs with Justice or SEIU International.
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