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After striking for over nine weeks, janitors won a major victory last month when the largest non-union janitorial contractor in King County, Cascadian Building Maintenance (CBM), agreed to a union recognition process called "card-check neutrality" that avoids the nasty boss retaliation rampant in Bush labor board elections. After a majority of the Cascadian Janitors sign up to join the janitors union, Service Employees Int’l Union Local (SEIU) 6, the workers will be able to negotiate for affordable healthcare, job security and respect on the job.
Prior to the strike, Cascadian healthcare costs were $20 a month PLUS a $25 co-pay for each visit PLUS a deductible of $1000 for an individual OR $420 a month PLUS $2000 deductible for a family. After the deductible is paid, workers had to pay 50% of all medical expenses and insurance covers the other 50%. The unionized janitors in Seattle and in Bellevue have employer paid family health care and dental, with the workers only needing to pay a $15 co-pay and 10% of any medical expenses.
This victory comes after years of JwJ style creative actions on building owners and tenants who pad their pockets by using janitors who have no access to affordable healthcare. Significant JwJ lead victories included:
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| JwJ activists take a break from educating
Holland American passengers about the dangers of Cascadian's
healthcare plan at the Sea-Tac
Airport |
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Holland America switching
from CBM to a janitorial contractor that provides affordable
healthcare after actions at the Sea-Tac Airport, Holland
America’s Corporate Headquarters, and on the eve of more
actions as the cruise ship season was about to start again |
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UW Students at the Blue Flame
Building, home of UW School of Medicine
offices | |
In a joint
campaign with the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) of WA
JwJ, janitors at UW School of Medicine off-campus labs made
progress toward achieving affordable healthcare. UW
Administrators committed to requiring leases to include the
statement "janitorial service providers should receive fair
wages and health care benefits when performing services at the
facility." |
This past summer, JwJ conducted a series of independent
actions at the Seattle Design Center including leafleting
outside while inflating the giant fat cat
balloon, disrupting educational seminars for design
students by asking tough questions about janitors access to
healthcare, and crashing the Design Center's Black Tie
Gala in September. Although the Design Center never made
the responsible decision that dozens of other building
operators did in King County by switching to a janitorial
contractor that provided affordable healthcare and a voice on
the job, Design Center CEO and 2006 "Grinch of
the Year" candidate Tim Treadway felt the heat and
appealed to community leaders to "make them stop".
In addition to these independent actions, JwJ mobilized for
over a dozen actions at the request of SEIU in support of
Cascadian Janitors at Cingular's headquarters in Redmond, the
Civica Building in Bellevue, the PI and Blue Flame buildings in
Seattle.
The final nail in the coffin for CBM’s exploitative
ways came when janitors went on strike for over nine weeks
starting in November of 2006 and in the final week of the strike
setup an encampment outside of the largest Cascadian cleaned
building and the site of numerous JwJ supported actions,
Bellevue’s Civica Building. Stay tuned for upcoming
actions as SEIU Local 6 works to spread similar workplace
standards to King County's security officers.
On Monday February 12th, Bellingham residents won a huge victory when the
Bellingham City Council voted 4-2 to pass an ordinance banning
big-box retail stores of more than 90,000 square feet.
Representatives from the Bellis Fair Mall, the
Bellingham/Whatcom Chamber of Commerce, Costco and Wal-Mart
attended the meeting to show their opposition to the big-box
ordinance.
In recent days, the City of Ferndale and Whatcom County have
both passed temporary moratoriums on big-box retail stores,
similar to what Bellingham passed back in September, in order to
give the communities in both municipalities time to consider how
best to address the consequences of big-box retailers like
damage to local businesses, elimination of living wage jobs,
increase in traffic, and urban sprawl.
Jobs with Justice members in Whatcom County have been working
on the issuesince last
September when Wal-Mart announced plans to expand their
existing Bellingham store into a super-center. "This fight was
not about Wal-Mart -- their announcement was only a wake-up
call. The fight was about the kind of community we want to live
in" said Don Houtchens, Jobs with Justice member and President
of Steelworkers 12-590. "If we don't stop sprawl now, we'll
never do it."
Bellingham has grown rapidly in the past 20 years. Many
residents are concerned about losing the quality of life they
now enjoy because it is potentially endangered by this predatory
growth. For example, in 1988 community members saw downtown
Bellingham destroyed when Bellis Fair Mall was built. After
nearly 20 years, the downtown still has many vacant stores
including two big-box stores that stand empty. Meanwhile,
big-box stores have proliferated on some of the city's
arterials.
In June 2006, Bellingham City Council approved a
Comprehensive Plan for the City that laid out a vision for
Bellingham. The Comprehensive Plan supported residents working,
living, and shopping in their own neighborhoods, growth that
will be accommodated primarily in urban villages, the ability
for residents to rely more on bicycles and walking than on cars,
a diversified economy that creates living wage jobs, and land
use patterns that promote efficient land use and reduce sprawl.
Jobs with Justice members realized that big-box stores are not
consistent with the vision of Bellingham articulated in the
Comprehensive Plan. So they set to work--talking with Council
members, writing letters, attending and speaking out at several
public hearings before City Council and the Planning
Commission.
Mega-millionaire property developer Prium signed a
contract to provide affordable housing to low-income Winthrop
residents as part of receiving a $2 million dollar low-interest
City loan to convert the Winthrop into a luxury hotel. Meanwhile, a majority of Tacoma City Council members are stating on record that city-subsidized projects (such as the Winthrop) must create living wage jobs, hire and train the local workforce as a condition of City support. Sound
reasonable?
These are big changes and big
victories
The question is why hasn’t this happened
before? For many years, Tacoma developers have enjoyed
tax-funded City welfare to help them profit large from
market-rate condo, luxury hotel, and other projects intended for
the wealthy few. Now the downtown Tacoma property market
is hot. Just check out the cranes and
advertisements. The working people of Tacoma have received
very little in return for this tax-the-poor to fund-the-rich
policy except displacement from communities and higher property
taxes.
After years of unstable developer plans for
Winthrop residents, the voices and organizing of Winthrop
residents amplified by Tacoma Catholic Worker members and JwJ
activists are helping shift the debate and decision-making
power. We’ve prevented Christmas evictions and made
housing and jobs a topic in Tacoma City deals with a major
developer. Several residential developers are even
contacting unions to explore hiring local.
Words Need to become Deeds
Winthrop residents still face uncertainty as the new
contract with Prium does not clarify important issues of
relocation, timeline, and rights of tenants to negotiate these
details. Workers at the Winthrop site also face
uncertainty over whether all of the new jobs will end up paying
living wages and affordable healthcare. Our community
still faces uncertainty whether this multi-million dollar
project will improve the chances of local low-wage workers to
obtain training and new jobs. For more background,
see our December
victory report.
We also hope the majority of the Tacoma City Council will
find the political will to negotiate a local living-wage jobs
policy into private developer contracts that get our tax-funded
welfare. Our future challenge will be whether:
- we can convert the Winthrop victory into the standard rather
than the exception in Tacoma and . . .
- local working people and low-income residents have a voice
in spending our tax-dollars to benefit all rather than an elite
few
 Amid some of the worst weather in the history of the Northwest with more than
100,000 households without electricity JwJ mounted an action to
demand justice for the flaggers and other laborers subcontracted
by Puget Sound Energy (PSE) who work for K & D Services and
others. Armed with an inflatable giant rat and the diamond ring
wearing fat cat JwJ activists held a mid-day rally the week
before Christmas demanding PSE share the wealth. Read
the article in Real Change about this action online.
After the JwJ lead action community members met with PSE officials where PSE agreed to use
union subcontractors. This means that the same flaggers
who were making $8.25 an hour now make $18.47 an hour plus
benefits.
PSE is a private corporation providing electricity and
natural gas to the majority of consumers in Western Washington.
PSE currently contracts out many jobs, and previously used
contractors who pay starvation wages, provided no access to
healthcare or retirement benefits for themselves or their
families, and had no voice at work.
Stay tuned for upcoming actions as JwJ and Laborers Union
leaders hope to spread these standards to other companies who
contract work out to K&D Services like Verizon.
After months of negotiations,
actions, and civil disobedience, workers at the Westin Hotel in
Seattle won a major victory with their new contract that
includes:
- Coverage of future healthcare increases
- Wage increases to bring many hotel workers up to a living
wage
- More secure retirement through increase to the employer paid
pension
- Safer workloads (ex: housekeepers drop 1 room from their
maximum daily room quota)
- Stronger protections for immigrant and transgendered
workers
 JwJ was there turning out people
for multiple rallies, recruiting community leaders to attend
contract negotiating sessions, and getting arrested on November
14th in an act of civil disobedience to send a message to
management of how far community members we're willing to go to
stand in solidarity with Westin workers.
Workers at the Westin voted 96% in favor of accepting the
best contract UNITE HERE Local 8, the union representing many
hotel and restaurant employees around Washington State, has ever
negotiated.
“We are all excited to be a part of such a strong
movement. Without the support of the community, we would not
have been able to set the example for the other hotels around.
We’ve only begun!” George Graves (Westin laundry
worker).
Through UNITE HERE’s Hotel
Workers Rising campaign, thousands of hotel workers in upscale
properties across North America are rising up to improve their
jobs and secure better lives for themselves and their families.
In 2006, room rates are hitting new highs. But instead of
sharing in the hotel industry’s record profits, many hotel
workers—largely minority and immigrant women—earn
poverty wages and are forced to work two jobs to get by. Others
are getting injured on the job because of understaffing and an
increase in room amenities like heavier mattresses and
linens.
Wages for the same jobs vary wildly from city to city, and
workers struggle to make ends meet and keep important benefits
like health care and retirement plans, as well as their right to
organize a union. By standing together, hotel workers are
sending this message to the hotel industry: We are determined to
make our jobs safer, middle-class jobs on which we can support
our families. Find out more by going online to the Hotel Workers
Rising or UNITE HERE
Local 8's website.
Six days after Whatcom County JwJ
activists joined Jobs with Justice coalitions in 24 other cities
across the country in a day of action at Goodyear tire stores,
the United Steelworkers (USW) reached a tentative agreement with
Goodyear. Days later, Goodyear workers ratified the contract
that addressed many of the workers concerns that lead to the
initial strike, including:
- Establishment of a company-financed trust of more than $1
billion that will secure medical and prescription drug benefits
for current and future retirees
- Requiring Goodyear to rescind its demand for immediate
closure of its Tyler, Texas plant
About 15,000 Goodyear workers, members of the United
Steelworkers, had been on strike since October 5th. Goodyear had
refused to back away from its contract demands that included
shutting its third U.S. plant in four years and gutting retiree
health care. The storefront demonstrations were designed to
spotlight the unreasonable contract demands Goodyear made
despite posting huge profits. The actions also protested the
elimination of U.S. manufacturing jobs by Goodyear and other
corporations.
- United Steelworkers members and retirees gave concessions in
2003 to insure that Goodyear remained in business, contributing
to a billion dollar turnaround at Goodyear.
- Despite concessions in the last contract and a profitable
business, Goodyear insisted on additional plant closings and
even deeper concessions
- Goodyear tried to turn their backs on the USW retirees who
built their company
- Goodyear used scabs to staff their plants even though
experts say that tires built by scabs contributed to the 271
deaths associated with rollovers of Ford Explorers
- Goodyear wants to outsource more American jobs to China
where Goodyear workers earn only 42 cents an hour under and have
no voice on the job
Prior to the week of action, the union-busting Bush
Administration interceded on Goodyear's behalf and threatened to
use the war as an excuse to break the strike. Bush
Administration lackeys in the then Republican dominated congress
jumped at the opportunity to use the war in Iraq as an
opportunity to attack American workers when they publicly
questioned whether Goodyear would be able to meet its production
quota of Army Humvees despite no such concerns coming from the
military leadership in the Pentagon, and threatened to use the
Federal Courts to order workers back on the job.
The fight at Goodyear was a critical one not just for the
15,000 strikers at Goodyear, but for their families, their
communities and working and poor families everywhere fighting
for good jobs and a decent standard of living. When the federal
government and large corporations target large numbers of
workers, the effects, positive or negative, are felt all through
out the country.
JwJ was among a number of
community organizations asked to help recruit extras for filming
of the movie “Battle in Seattle”. According to the
movie’s website, “Battle in Seattle takes an
in-depth look at the five days that rocked the world in 1999 as
tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in
protest of the World Trade Organization.” JwJ did its
part, recruiting over one hundred area activists to serve as
extras in the movie.
When tipped off by local allies that Battle in Seattle was
planning on using non-union labor to shoot the movie in Seattle,
JwJ leaders immediately contacted the union representing these
workers, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage
Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts
(IATSE) to offer our help in the struggle to get the movie
production company to maintain area standards.
Following IATSE’s lead, JwJ helped put pressure on the
movie production company. The result was a taping of the Battle
in Seattle without a sit-in or other action that might disrupt
production, and a movie production company that is now committed
to using union workers wherever they shoot.
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