Raising Workforce Standards in Property Services Through Market-Wide Agreements That Keep Companies Competitive
The SEIU Model
The historic choice by thousands of Houston janitors to form a union with SEIU marks the latest success of an innovative organizing model pioneered by SEIU, America's largest property service workers' union.
In the commercial cleaning industry and other sub-contracted industries, contractors operate at the whim of clients who foster intense competition on costs by rewarding lowest bidders and firing contractors that attempt to raise standards.
Within this system, SEIU has pioneered an organizing model that is helping janitors and other property services workers lift themselves out of poverty and improving cleaning services for janitorial clients without putting any one company at a competitive disadvantage.
How it Works:
- Market-wide master contracts. SEIU unites workers across an entire metropolitan market and negotiates one master contact that covers all union janitors in that market.
- "Trigger agreements." Because the employers are typically sub-contractors whose contracts with building owners can be cancelled on 30 days notice, wage and benefit increases are implemented only when enough of the companies operating in the market have signed the master agreement to ensure that none will be put at a competitive disadvantage.
Accomplishments:
- 27 master contracts. SEIU and commercial cleaning contractors have successfully negotiated 27 master contracts in urban and suburban markets across the country - including New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.
- Wages and benefits. Highlights have included: increased pay to over $10 an hour with health benefits for part-time janitors in Washington, DC; a 26 percent wage increase for janitors in downtown Los Angeles; employer-paid health insurance for janitors and their families in suburban Chicago; full-time jobs for part-time janitors in Denver and Cleveland; and $3 wage hikes in Boston including health coverage for 1,000 part-timers.
- Training. In major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Boston, SEIU and building owners have worked together to institute employee training programs such as English courses for immigrants and computer classes.
- Workforce stability. Improving janitors' wages, benefits, and training in turn improves employee retention and productivity. Companies that report turnover is "not a problem" clean an average of 714 square feet of office space per employee hour more than those where turnover is "too high and a problem." (Cleaning Maintenance & Management, May, 1998) The cost of constantly replacing janitors also adds up. An industry publication estimates that if an employee leaves within one month, the turnover cost is equivalent to three months wages. If the employee leaves within six months, that cost rises to a full year's wages. (Cleaning Maintenance & Management On-Line, February 2003).
For more information, contact SEIU's Lynda Tran at 202-898-3349 or tranl@seiu.org