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Saturday, September 23, 2006
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Houston Janitors Vote Overwhelmingly to Authorize Strike
Contract negotiations reach turning point as janitors call for wages and health care on par with other major U.S. cities
Houston -- Nearly 1,000 janitors who clean Houston's major downtown office buildings voted today on whether or not to walk off the job. Today's overwhelming vote authorizing janitors' bargaining committee to call a strike if necessary means that janitors representing more than 5,300 Houston janitors could call for a city-wide strike at any time.
"Imagine a life without the impossible choices we're forced to make--what life would be like without worrying how to pay the rent," said Mercedes Herrera, a janitor with ABM. "I'm here with all of you today to say enough is enough."
Janitors employed by the five largest cleaning contractors in Houston--ABM, OneSource, GCA, Sanitors, and Pritchard--have been bargaining for wage increases to $8.50 per hour, more work hours, and access to health care to be phased in over the life of the contract. With janitors entering the final phase of negotiations for their first-ever union contract, nearly one thousand janitors and their families, elected, faith, labor, and community leaders held a convention calling for wages and health care on par with other major U.S. cities.
"Look at me--I'm fighting cancer because I don't have health care and I couldn't afford to go to the doctor," said Ercilia Sandoval, a janitor with GCA. "My daughters may grow up without a mother now."
In Other Cities, Same Corporations Pay Janitors More, Provide Health Care
Although janitors in Houston 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. Janitors clean buildings owned or managed by a number of national corporations including the Houston-based Hines Interests, Transwestern, and PM Realty as well as KBS Realty Advisors.
"It's not right that the same big corporations that provide good jobs with health care in other cities won't do the same for Houston families," said Alana Hill, a member of ACORN. "It's hard to believe that a $3 billion dollar industry can't afford to do better for our city."
Houston janitors earn 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. In addition, the vast majority of the city's janitors work part-time. Earning less than $6,000 a year, janitors are often forced to work second and third jobs to support their families.
With 1.1 million uninsured in Houston--fully one third of the area's population--the janitors' contract also has implications for easing the city's health care crisis. A city-wide union contract with health benefits for Houston janitors would mean thousands of workers with access to affordable care--easing the burden on taxpayers and public hospitals in the city.
Local and National Support for Houston Janitors
The strike authorization vote was held the same day as more than 1,000 immigrant workers, religious and community leaders, elected leaders, and other supporters held a march through downtown Houston. 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, including Houston-Galveston Archbishop Emeritus Joseph A. Fiorenza; U.S. Representatives Al Green, Gene Green, and Sheila Jackson Lee; State Representatives Jessica Ferrar, Garnet Coleman, Dora Olivo, and Ana Hernandez; Harris County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia; and Houston City Council Members Adrian Garcia, Carol Alvarado, Peter Brown, and Sue Lovell, and organizations including TMO, Logos Communities, CRECEN, and ACORN, among others.
Since last year, more than one hundred SEIU janitors from across the country have come to Houston to support Houston janitors' efforts to improve their lives. Delegations of workers from Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Boston have traveled to Houston this week in a show of worker unity and are planning support activities in their own cities in the coming weeks. Last summer, hundreds of SEIU janitors at nearly 80 buildings in two dozen cities honored the picket lines of Houston janitors during a ten-day strike at First City Tower downtown. The Teamsters, UFCW, UNITE-HERE and other member unions of the national Change to Win labor federation also supported the striking workers and are continuing to stand with janitors in their struggle for their first union contract.