Justice for Janitors
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Justice for Janitors is a movement of janitors uniting for the best working conditions. It is part of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Justice for Janitors started in Denver, Colorado in 1985. 200,000 plus janitors in more than 28 cities throughout the United States have united in SEIU and won family health insurance, livable wages, full-time work, and better working conditions. This movement of low-wage, mostly immigrant workers has earned broad-based support from the public as well as religious, political and community leaders.
A watershed moment for the movement was the Century City strike. In 1990, janitors in the Century City high-rise commercial office area of Los Angeles staged a three-week general strike for improved wages and benefits. On June 15, LAPD officers attacked a group of 400 non-violent demonstrators, injuring two dozen janitors. Television coverage of the attacks, which were seen as a police riot and condemned by elected officials, won widespread public sympathy for the striking janitors. The contract signed by the Los Angeles cleaning contractors and the janitors, represented by SEIU Local 1877, resulted in a 25% raise and fully-paid health benefits - more than any settlement janitors had won in the past 20 years.[1] The strike was memorialized in a fictionalized account by Ken Loach in the 2000 film Bread and Roses. June 15 is now celebrated as "Justice for Janitors Day."
Since the Century City strike, Justice for Janitors campaigns across the country have been characterized by creative acts of public protest. Highly visible demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience, such as sit-ins, have succeeded in turning media and public attention toward the working conditions of a largely invisible sector of the workforce. In 1996, janitors in Washington, DC blocked traffic on the Roosevelt Bridge over the Potomac River to highlight low wages in the cleaning industry there.[2]
Currently, janitors in Houston, Texas are organizing through the Justice for Janitors campaigns. In July 2005 Houston janitors secured a check and neutrality agreement from the five largest cleaning contractors in Houston, a historic victory in a right-to-work state. In November 2005 four of the five contractors recognized SEIU as representing a majority of each contractor's workers, and in December the fifth contractor did as well.
On November 20, 2006 - a few days after dozens of strikers and their supporters were roughly arrested by Houston police while engaging in civil disobedience - a tentative agreement was reached between striking Houston janitors and employers. The proposed settlement includes many concessions from employers, and SEIU was quick to declare victory.
More information is available on the Houston campaign www.houstonjanitors.org.
