From: Jobs with Justice (jwjnational@jwj.org)
Date: Thu Oct 24 2002 - 14:42:10 EDT
SI SE PUEDE! YES WE CAN!
Boston-area janitors and cleaning contractors reached
a tentative contract settlement yesterday, just hours
before a planned day of civil disobedience organized
by E. Mass. Jobs with Justice. Please see the story
in the Boston Globe below for some of the details of
what was won. Workers will vote on the contract next
week.
This settlement demonstrates the power of solidarity
when we're all there for each other. When labor and
community come together, amazing things can happen.
We are building for a better future! Thank you to everyone
who played a part in this victory - the local JwJ activists
in cities nationwide who took part in solidarity actions
- the students who took action on their campuses -
the religious, community, and political leaders who
supported the workers- the hundreds of individual activists
who sent faxes and called UNICCO and Equity Office
Properties - the SEIU staff - and the courageous janitors
who were not afraid to stand up and demand what is
right!
-------------------------------------------------
Janitors, firms in accord
By Kimberly Blanton, Globe Staff, 10/24/2002
Twenty-four days after Boston-area janitors went out
on strike, the union and cleaning companies yesterday
signed a tentative agreement on a new contract that
gives custodians substantial wage increases and, for
the first time, extends health care to 1,000 part-time
janitors.
After a long day of tense negotiations, and with Mayor
Thomas M. Menino leaning hard on both sides, union
leader Rocio Saenz and James Canavan, the companies'
representative, emerged with the mayor from the Parkman
House, the city's official residence on Beacon Hill,
to announce what they called a historic agreement.
[Related stories, C1, C4.]
Under the five-year contract, which must now be ratified
by the union membership, the companies agreed to boost
janitors' pay to $13.15 per hour, from $9.95 currently
for part-time employees and $10.20 for full-time workers.
Removing the main obstacle to reaching an agreement
during the prolonged labor dispute, the companies relented
on the union's central demand that they pay the full
cost of health insurance for part-time janitors in
their predominantly Latino, immigrant work force.
"This is a tremendous victory," said Saenz, who heads
Local 254 of the Service Employees International Union
and who led a successful three-week strike in Los Angeles
two years ago. "We have for the first time part-time
janitors with health care, which means if janitors
get sick, they can to go the doctor and they can pay
for their medicine," she said.
Highlights
* Health-care benefits will be extended to 1,000 part-time
workers in the area's largest buildings by the third
year of the contract
* Sick leave: 2 days per year
* Hourly wages
Now $9.95 part time; $10.20 full time
By 2007
For workers inside Route 128
$12.95 for those with less than 5 years' service;
$13.15 for those with 5 years' service;
Lower wage hikes outside Route 128
* Full-time jobs: No change
* Family health benefits: May be extended to part-time
workers
No more than 2,000 of the 10,700 members of the union
actually walked off the job since the strike began
on Oct. 1. But a phalanx of influential politicians
and business leaders - ranging from US Senators Edward
M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry and Democratic gubernatorial
candidate Shannon O'Brien to the California state pension
fund and the chief executives of John Hancock Financial
Services and State Street Corp. - drove the parties
toward a resolution. The business leaders threatened
to terminate the cleaning contracts with the companies
involved, particularly Newton-based Unicco Service
Co., the largest cleaning contractor in the city and
the primary strike target.
The business leaders and community activists supporting
the strike also applied pressure to owners of downtown
buildings behind the scenes, urging them to agree to
pay more for their cleaning services. Soon after building
owners began mobilizing late last week and over the
weekend, cleaning companies on Sunday came out with
the proposal that formed the basis of yesterday's agreement.
But it was Menino who urged both sides to return to
the bargaining table after weeks in which they had
refused to communicate with each other. The mayor tapped
Thomas Glynn, chief operating officer of Partners Healthcare
and a former US deputy secretary of labor, to help
the parties work through details of the negotiations
over health coverage.
The mayor's primary concern was heading off a plan
by community activists to stage a "day of chaos" today,
including traffic disruptions and other acts of civil
disobedience that would have embarrassed the city at
a time officials were pursuing the 2004 Democratic
National Convention. Last night, those activists, led
by Jobs with Justice, said the events were called off.
"This is a proud day for the City of Boston," said
Chad Gifford, chief executive of FleetBoston Financial
Corp. "Workers have improved their wages and benefits,
businesses have been fair and equitable, and the mayor
has shown genuine leadership."
While the union and the companies are still ironing
out some details, striking janitors are expected to
begin returning to their jobs on Monday. The membership
will also be asked to vote on the proposed contract,
though no date has been set for a vote.
As news of the settlement filtered down to the union's
rank and file, many janitors were elated that the difficult
strike was over. "We are winning. Unicco is backing
down," said Hector Rodriguez, a 35-year-old, part-time
janitor at One International Place. Rodriguez joined
approximately 1,000 janitors who gathered last night
in a boisterous meeting at Old West Church in Boston
for a briefing on the settlement and a celebration.
As they marched to the church, carrying signs that
said, "End Corporate Greed," they chanted, in Spanish,
"We have a contract" and "Don't stop! Don't stop!"
Canavan, who negotiated the agreement on behalf of
some 30 companies in the Maintenance Contractors of
New England, confirmed that the health benefits would
be fully funded by employers. The plan put forward
on Sunday had proposed that part-time workers pay some
portion of their premium, but the union insisted all
along that even a small premium would be too onerous
for low-wage janitors.
The contract "is fair to workers," said Canavan, who
is also a Unicco executive. "We had a few bumps in
the road but we're going to put it behind us and move
on." He later added: "We're happy it's over. The whole
city is happy it's over."
In 2004, the third year of the contract, the cleaning
companies guaranteed that 1,000 part-time janitors
who work in the largest buildings in the central business
district will begin receiving individual benefits that
will be fully paid for by their employers. The number
of part-time janitors agreed upon is an apparent compromise
between the union's early request that 1,500 receive
coverage and a company proposal that would have given
the benefits to as many as 600 workers. Currently,
full-time janitors who receive individual benefits
may purchase family benefits for a small premium; it
remains to be negotiated whether part-time janitors
who will now become eligible for health insurance will
have that option.
In return, the union dropped its demand that the contractors
in Boston convert some of their part-time work force
to full-time jobs. The companies insisted that they
needed the flexibility of a part-time work force on
the evening shift, and argued that converting some
workers would force them to lay off other longtime
employees.
The companies also agreed to provide two sick days
per year to all janitors, who previously had none.
Pay raises will depend on how long a worker has been
on the job. In the tentative agreement, signed yesterday
by both sides, full-time and part-time janitors with
more than five years' experience will see their hourly
wages rise approximately 6 percent a year over five
years, to $13.15 in 2007, the last year of the contact,
while wages for those who have less than five years'
experience would rise to $12.95, both sides said.
In a win for the union, those wage hikes apply to all
janitors working within a 15-mile radius of downtown;
cleaning companies had wanted to establish a two-tier
wage structure, with downtown janitors earning more,
the union said.
Health benefits for all 1,000 additional janitors will
become effective in the third year of the contract.
The contract is another feather in the cap of an increasingly
aggressive Service Employees International Union, which
has been on a national campaign to improve living standards
for janitors. The union, which has been criticized
for its growing militance, recruited veterans from
labor actions in other cities, including Saenz, to
come to Boston.
"The Boston contract is a slam dunk," said Tom Juravich,
a labor professor and director of the Labor Center
at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He said
health care is the major issue unions are fighting
today, and the janitors' cause clearly resonated with
the public. "It's true the janitors didn't get everything
they wanted, but remember Boston has been 10 years
behind many other major cities, such as New York and
Chicago, and this puts Boston back on the map," he
said.
Menino, who constantly checked in on the negotiations
during the day, seemed to know from the start how he
wanted yesterday to end. He gave both parties a 4 p.m.
deadline for an agreement, though they did not wrap
up the deal until around 4:45 - just in time for a
5:30 press conference. During the day, however, optimism
over the talks waxed and waned and it was not clear
the mayor would have his way. At one point in the middle
of the afternoon one person close to the talks said
that they appeared to be falling apart.
"We accomplished what we started out to get: A contract
that gives more health insurance to workers," Menino
said.
Kimberly Blanton can be reached at blanton@globe.com.
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 10/24/2002.
Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
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