Justice for Janitors
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Justice for Janitors is a janitor organization movement and part of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Justice for Janitors was established in Denver, Colorado, in 1985. More than 200,000 janitors in more than 29 cities throughout the United States have joined the SEIU and obtained family health insurance, living wage provisions, full-time employment, and improved working conditions.
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, Los Angeles Police Department officers clashed with a group of 400 nonviolent demonstrators who were protesting ISS A/S. Police injured two dozen janitors. The contract signed by the Los Angeles cleaning contractors and the janitors, represented by SEIU Local 1877, resulted in a 25 percent pay raise and fully paid health benefits, more than any settlement janitors had won in the past 20 years. In the ensuing lawsuit, in which news videotape was brought to bear during testimony, the LAPD was found guilty of causing the riot and were order to pay SEIU Local 399 $3.5 million.[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 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 janitors. In 1996, janitors in Washington, D.C. blocked traffic on the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge over the Potomac River to highlight low wages in the cleaning industry there.[2]
Currently, many 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. [3] 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 arrested by Houston police while engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience, a tentative agreement was reached between striking Houston janitors and employers. The proposed settlement included many concessions from employers, and SEIU was quick to declare victory.
In United Kingdom the movement is called Justice for Cleaners.
