FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Lynda Tran
202-907-1172
***CONF. CALL ADVISORY FOR TUES. OCT. 31**
After one week, Houston janitors’ strike spreading nationwide…
Houston Janitors To Announce Plans To Set Up Picket Lines in Other Cities
Higher-paid union workers in Chicago, NY, LA set to stay off the job to support low-wage Houston workers
To Join the Conference Call
Toll-free dial-in #: 1-866-793-1299
Ask for the “Janitors Supporting Janitors” Call
When: 12 p.m. CT, Tuesday Oct. 31
A strike by thousands of poverty-wage Houston janitors is spreading nationwide as strikers will announce plans to set up picket lines in other cities on a conference call with reporters Tuesday at 12 p.m. CT. Some of the presentations will be in Spanish and translation will be provided.
With an understanding that low employment standards in America’s fourth largest city threaten their own way of life, SEIU janitors from New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and major cities throughout the country have pledged to honor the picket lines of SEIU janitors from Houston who work for the same companies.
Janitors in Chicago and Los Angeles make more than twice as much as their co-workers in Houston and have health insurance and full-time work while Houston workers are paid $20 a day, with no health insurance for part-time work. In every city, the janitors work for many of the same national cleaning firms in buildings owned by the same national commercial landlords. The five national cleaning firms whose Houston workers are on strike over unfair labor practices are ABM, OneSource, GCA, Sanitors, and Pritchard. National landlords such as Houston-based Hines, Transwestern, and PM Realty hire those firms to clean their properties in multiple cities around the country.
WHAT: Conference Call about national escalation of Houston janitors’ strike
WHEN: 12 p.m. CT, Tuesday, October 31
WHO: SEIU janitors from Houston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles
Note: Some of the presentations will be in Spanish, translation provided.
TO JOIN: Dial Toll-Free: 1-866-793-1299
Ask for the “Janitors Supporting Janitors” Call
Janitors will take questions from the media following the announcement
Background:
Houston janitors seeking a shot at the American Dream put down their brooms and walked off the job October 23 to defend their civil rights and protest the failure to bargain in good faith by five large national cleaning companies. The employers have responded to the janitors’ efforts to lift themselves out of poverty by launching a campaign of civil rights abuses against workers speaking out for improvements.
The strike could have national implications for hundreds of thousands of low-wage service workers, but immediately at stake are the living standards of 5,300 Houston workers and their families, who are paid just $20 a day, with no health insurance for part-time work.
Last fall, Houston janitors made the historic choice to form a union with SEIU (Service Employees International Union). Their decision capped one of the largest successful organizing drives by private sector workers ever in the Southern half of the United States. Since forming a union with SEIU, the janitors have been saying there is no future on $20 a day and have been seeking a raise to $8.50/hour, more hours, and health insurance in a citywide union contract. For more info, visit houstonjanitors.org
More than 225,000 janitors in 29 metropolitan areas nationwide have formed a union with SEIU’s Justice for Janitors movement.