Vol. 64/No.18 May 8, 2000
Janitors strike scores victory in Los Angeles
BY MARK FRIEDMAN
LOS ANGELES--Janitors here won a victory for their union and all working people in this city through their spirited and determined three-week strike against 18 building maintenance contractors.
Some 2,000 members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1877 voted to accept a new contract by an 88 percent margin and are now back at work. The SEIU represents 8,500 janitors covered by the agreement, about 4,000 of whom walked off the job. The workers, who clean 70 percent of downtown office buildings, earn $7.80 and hour. In Century City and outlying areas workers earn $6.80 an hour.
"My head is high," Jesus Perez, a janitor for 20 years, told the Los Angeles Times. "This strike was not just about our wages it was about respect. We showed we are part of a bigger movement."
While short of the $1 an hour per year wage hike they were demanding, the final pact included a 22 to 26 percent wage hike over three years, the largest contractual raise in two decades. Workers in Downtown and Century City will get a raise of 70 cents the first year, followed by two 60 cent increases the second and third years of the agreement.
In outlying areas janitors will receive a 30 cent increase next October, then the two 60 cent hikes. Los Angeles County workers who are employed outside the main organized buildings did not fare as well, receiving only a 20 cent per hour increase for each year of the three-year contract.
The employers agreed to pay at least 30 cents above minimum wage to all workers. Starting salaries for new hires remain at the precontract levels for a year, which is $6.80 to $7.90 an hour, then rise to the new contract pay. All workers will receive a signing bonus of $500.
The union also won, for the first time, five paid sick days over the three-year contract. They likewise defeated the contractors' demand that workers make co-payments towards medical insurance and agree to the subcontracting of union jobs to nonunion cleaning companies.
Language in the new contract states that management must immediately inform the union if there is to be an investigation into the immigration status of any member, and members are granted 30 days to correct any immigration problems. The contract ends April 30, 2003, which coincides with the expiration of the northern California SEIU janitors contract.
Many union members see the strike as a victory. Their militancy and frequent rallies of up to several thousand won the support and respect of the majority of working people.
This battle highlighted the impact of immigrant and women workers in the union, and the growing strength of the union resulting from it. Members became more confident during the strike, on the picket lines, and in rejecting contract concessions. The employers, too, have taken note of these gains.
The Los Angeles Times, for example, commented that the strike is "likely to be remembered as a watershed moment for Los Angeles labor."
It is a change that has been long in coming. In the mid-1980s the city's building maintenance industry fired almost all of the unionized workforce--mainly Black workers who earned $7.32 an hour--and hired immigrants, many undocumented, at $3.35 an hour.
Through successful battles and organizing drives in the 1990s the union grew to 8,500, some 98 percent of whom are immigrants and 55 percent are women. They have fought harassment by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, threats of deportation, and a cop riot against a peaceful march in 1990 in Century City.
At a union rally April 23, one of the strikers, who asked not to be identified, said in an interview that he was "not happy with the contract negotiations. The wage increase should be at least $1 an hour. But if we vote to go back to work tomorrow, we go back stronger."
After a discussion at the local union meeting, International Association of Machinists Local 2785 at the Los Angeles Airport voted to send a financial contribution, to initiate a food drive, and to distribute SEIU strike materials to the membership urging them to join the janitors pickets and protests.
Janitors are still on strike in downtown San Diego and suburban Chicago. Several other cities like Cleveland, Seattle, and Milwaukee face possible strikes by SEIU organized janitors.
Mark Friedman is a member of the International Association of Machinists Local 2785 in Los Angeles.
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