For Immediate Release:
Saturday, August 26, 2006

For More Information:
Lynda Tran, 202-907-1172 cell

As intense contract talks continue for more than 5,300 Houston janitors…

“Back-to-school” rally focuses on poverty-level wages hurting parents and schoolchildren

Janitors and community supporters call for fair wages for families

Houston – With contract negotiations shifting into high gear for more than five thousand of the city’s janitors, wages that support a family were the focus of a “back-to-school” rally attended by hundreds of janitors, leaders of the faith community, elected leaders, and community supporters by George I. Sanchez High School today.

“$5.15 an hour isn’t enough for school supplies, much less a chance at the American Dream,” said Rick Brennan, a teacher at Sidney Lanier Middle School. “Janitors and their families are a living example of the kind of tough choices families are forced to make when they are paid poverty-level wages.”

The rally took place as janitors and their employers are continuing a series of four contract negotiation sessions in the span of one week. More than 5,300 janitors employed by the five largest cleaning contractors in Houston—ABM, OneSource, GCA, Sanitors, and Pritchard—are currently bargaining over increased wages, access to health care, and more work hours.

Although the janitors work for the same large national cleaning companies and clean buildings owned by many of the same large, national real estate companies whose janitors are members of SEIU in other cities, they have the lowest wages and benefits of any major city in the United States. Houston janitors work part-time for an average wage of $5.30 an hour—$106 a week—and receive no health or other benefits. Meanwhile, according to updated figures based on research by the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, average expenses for a Houston-area family with two parents and two children are nearly $700 a week.

“I work hard but I can’t afford to buy my kids what they need for school—or much of anything else,” said Veronica Taboada, a janitor with OneSource. “It’s a struggle just to put food on the table.”

The janitors’ ongoing campaign to win good jobs with access to health care has won broad support from community leaders in Houston. More than 100 community, religious and elected leaders, churches, and organizations in Houston have pledged their public support to the janitors.

With more than 1.8 million members, SEIU is the nation’s largest union and the largest union of property services employees—including more than 225,000 janitors. In the last decade, SEIU has helped hundreds of thousands of workers win better pay and access to affordable health insurance on the job.