The Militant - April 24, 2006 -- On the Picket Line

Vol. 70/No. 16 April 24, 2006

On the Picket Line

University of Miami janitors
win higher wages after strike
MIAMI—After a five-week strike against UNICCO, the Boston-based contractor that employs them, University of Miami (UM) housekeepers and groundskeepers have won higher wages. UNICCO and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 11 are still negotiating over the workers’ demand for union recognition. Ten striking janitors along with eight UM students began a hunger strike April 5 to protest “ongoing and unchecked abuses and civil rights violations committed by UNICCO,” the SEIU said.

On March 20 university president Donna Shalala announced that the minimum hourly wage for all 900 employees of contractors would immediately increase to $8.00 per hour. Housekeepers who previously had a starting hourly wage of $6.40, Florida’s minimum, now start at $8.55. Groundskeepers’ wages will jump from $6.40 to $9.30 per hour.

On April 3 UNICCO workers held a rally and march at the entrance to Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale. A busload of UM janitors participated. The union is seeking to organize the 260 UNICCO workers there.

—Maggie Trowe

Chicago: Rallies at McDonald’s
back farm workers’ fight
CHICAGO—Some 200 protesters rallied outside several McDonald’s restaurants here April 1 to demand higher wages for farm workers. Among those organizing the protests is the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, based among farm workers in southwest Florida. Dozens of these workers and their supporters traveled to Chicago for the event. They are demanding that McDonald’s pay 1 cent more per pound for tomatoes they buy from Florida tomato growers, with the increases to go directly to wages.

Workers report pay for a 32-pound bucket of tomatoes has basically remained unchanged over the past 30 years. At 40-45 cents per bucket, they have to pick nearly two tons a day to earn $50. Most of these workers are originally from Mexico, Guatemala, and Haiti.

—Rollande Girard

N.Y. judge orders jail term
for transit union leader
NEW YORK—A New York State Supreme Court judge ordered a 10-day jail term for Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 president Roger Toussaint April 10. The 34,000 members of Local 100 carried out a three-day strike here last December against Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) attacks on their medical and pension benefits. They defied the Taylor Law, which bans strikes by public employees in New York.

Bus and subway workers will be completing a revote April 18 on the contract they narrowly rejected in January. They had voted it down because of the inclusion of first-ever payments for medical coverage and as a chance to say no to the MTA bosses and city and state officials who had labeled them as thugs.

—Michael Italie

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