IBJ Staff

Janitors working in Market Tower downtown walked off the job yesterday in their ongoing attempt to organize under the Service International Employees Union.

Union backers have complained for months that the company that cleans the tower, Executive Management Services, is discouraging its workers from joining the union.Both the union and the Indianapolis janitorial company have accused the other of harassment and intimidation.

Executive Management Services, one of the city’s largest janitorial firms, says it has asked the union to file a petition for a secret-ballot election with the National Labor Relations Board. The election would help determine whether the workers want the union to represent them.
However, the union frets that an NLRB election would open the door to company managers campaigning one-on-one with workers. Union-organizing activity also would be restricted within the workplace.

Mansur Tower, on Market Street near the Statehouse, is owned by locally based HDG Mansur, and is home to Key Bank and the law firm Bingham McHale. Dave Swider, an attorney representing Executive Management Services, said the company is considering its options. Those options include replacing the employees, subcontracting the work, or management undertaking the cleaning.“Obviously, we have to get the work done,” Swider said.

For more on the fight, see an article in this week’s IBJ.

A union seeking higher wages for outsourced janitors at Cincinnati State Technical & Community College met briefly Thursday with President Ron Wright at the Clifton campus.

Justice for Janitors, a program of the Service Employees International Union, delivered a letter asking Cincinnati State to pressure EMS, the Indianapolis-based company chosen by the college to provide janitorial services, to raise wages so janitors can afford health care.

Wright says the union's battle is with EMS and not Cincinnati State.

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann has asked the college not to take sides and he did not commit to any position to the union.

"Basically, we've been put in the middle," Wright said. "This is quite a disruption when we're trying to get the best service we can for the college."

Union organizer Matt Ryan responded that Cincinnati State should show leadership and pressure EMS to do the right thing.

"It's really a shame that a school you'd expect to help working people move up has chosen to step back on this issue," he said.

The dispute is not connected to Cincinnati's State's contract talks with its own unionized workers.

 by Shawndra Miller

Solidarity was the watchword at Wednesday’s Justice for Janitors interfaith and community rally on Monument Circle. Religious groups, activists, janitors, and a state representative pledged to stand with Indianapolis’s janitors as they organize for a living wage and benefits.

In the heart of a city where janitors face retaliation if they agitate for improved wages and working conditions, Wednesday’s event was a resounding battle cry. Over 300 people, many sporting purple union T-shirts, turned out for an hour of prayers, marching, songs, and speeches. Part raucous protest, part revival meeting, the faith-based rally gave voice to the struggle of hardworking people denied their basic rights.

Rev. Darren Cushman-Wood of Speedway United Methodist Church set the tone, saying, “We come here today to denounce economic segregation. Is it not too much to ask that janitors in Indianapolis earn a living wage? Is it not too much to ask that janitors in Indianapolis have access to affordable health care?” Janitors also deserve a voice in the workplace and full-time steady employment, Wood continued.

Speaker after speaker echoed the call for justice. Community activist Kim Tillman, wife of fired janitor Darnale Tillman, described the inequity employers’ treatment of service workers, who often work in areas where “they can’t even afford to eat.” Rev. Dick Hamm, former general minister and president of Disciples of Christ, brought the disparities home by contrasting the janitors’ lot with those of CEOs. “There’s something wrong when a person is working full time and still living under the poverty line at $15,000 a year,” he said, noting that CEOs typically bring home some $14 million in compensation while increasing their profits by “moving to places where there is no voice for labor.”

“We must act for justice because capitalism does not guarantee justice,” he said, calling for an end to exploitation of service workers. The Tillmans have seven children, and recently Darnale was fired from national janitorial company Executive Management Services after he began organizing for better wages. At $7.25 an hour, his biweekly paycheck came to $310. EMS employees clean offices at 10 W. Market Street, Indianapolis Power and Light, and the Indiana Farm Bureau, among others. According to Darnale, most janitors cannot afford reliable transportation. For many, even bus fare is prohibitive, and they must bike or walk to and from work. He spoke of one worker who bikes 42 miles round trip to work in Market Tower.

Darnale and other janitors also cited lack of training and inadequate safety and cleaning equipment to do their jobs. For example, Sandra Jones, who works for EMS at $7.75 an hour, said she receives only 8 pairs of gloves a day to clean 13 floors. Though no longer an EMS employee, Darnale is still in the fight, encouraging the janitors who work there to stand up for their rights. “We have the power to change our working situations and build stronger communities,” he said.

A large contingent of Cincinnati janitors lent their voices to the cause. Their presence was made more powerful by the fact that they recently won higher wages, more work hours, and health insurance in their first-ever city-wide union contract. Janitor Raquel Baca spoke of this hopeful development, saying through a translator, “Cincinnati did it. Now it’s our turn!” Her speech ended with “Si, se puede!” (Yes, we can!), a chant that was loudly taken up by those assembled.

Rep. David Orentlicher told the appreciative crowd, “I will stand up for Justice for Janitors. You do have friends in the state legislature.”

During the rally, several ministers formed a delegation to Indianapolis Power and Light, where EMS employees have gotten little support. Rev. Linda McCrae of Central Christian Church reported that the clergy have previously delivered two letters requesting an appointment with IPL’s top management. Noting that several large employers, including Simon Malls, Eli Lilly, and Duke Realty, have agreed to help hold janitorial companies accountable, McCrae said the delegation was once again rebuffed.

“Their position is that as owners of the building, they have no responsibility in what happens between the janitorial company and its employees,” she said. She pledged to continue efforts to intervene on behalf of the workers.

Summing it up was Light of the World’s Bishop T. Garrott Benjamin, who said simply, “If this city is going to be a world class city, it is going to have to treat all its citizens in a first class way.” “We are in a battle for the soul of the city,” he said, calling on those present to declare the equality of all, from judges to janitors, from those who wear blue jeans to those in blue uniforms. “If we can spend a billion dollars on a stadium, surely we can pay a decent wage to the janitors who clean up our mess!”

Greater Cincinnati janitors ratified a contract over the weekend that will boost pay and provide access to health care benefits over the next five years. We regard the agreement as significant -- and as good news.

The contract was negotiated over the past five months between the region's eight largest cleaning companies and the Service Employees International Union. Officials with the union, which in 2005 broke away from the AFL-CIO, said the contract covers janitorial workers in about two-thirds of all office buildings in Greater Cincinnati.

The contract is significant in several respects:

* It marks the first time that janitorial employees of independent cleaning companies in Greater Cincinnati have been represented by a union. (Some employers hire building maintenance and cleaning workers directly, and some of them are represented by unions.)

* It marks an expansion into the heartland of an organizing effort that has been under way for more than two decades. The SEIU's "Justice for Janitors'' campaign initially focused on larger cities, many on the East and West coasts or larger inland cities such as Chicago. Cincinnati is now the 27th urban area whose janitors have been organized by the SEIU; negotiations are under way in Columbus and Indianapolis.

* The contract was negotiated in a fairly amicable way. Talks began in March. On July 14 workers authorized the union to call a strike if a tentative contract couldn't be reached. The final agreement came together after three days of intense negotiations last week.

We regard the contract as good news largely because it will improve the quality of life for people who deserve it.

The agreement calls for wages to rise to a minimum of $7.05 by Oct. 1 and to $9.80 an hour by Jan. 1, 2012. That still isn't a lot of money (by way of comparison, the federal minimum wage, now $5.85 an hour, will rise to $7.25 in mid-2009), but it represents progress for workers who today are sometimes earning as little as $6.85 an hour.

Within three years, the pact will also give workers the opportunity to work at least seven hours per shift. Now, many companies limit janitors to four or five hours per shift, typically starting in early evening. (Hence, many janitors now work at two or more part-time jobs.) This contract will give janitors six paid holidays a year and the ability to accrue paid vacation time. For some, this will mark their first time ever to get paid time off from work.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the contract gives janitors access to employer-subsidized group health insurance starting Jan. 1, 2010. The cost will start at $20 a month for those in a single plan and rise to as much as $198 a month for the most expensive family plan.

In a more perfect world, workers would not have to join a labor union to secure access to affordable health care. But until Congress finds enough backbone to step up and address the issue in a meaningful way, it's hard to fault the approach taken by janitors here and across the country.

Beyond health care, we think the new contract is important for what it says about the value of work.

The American ideal has historically been to reward an honest day's work with fair compensation -- enough, certainly, to support a decent standard of living. That ideal was implicit in the most recent round of welfare reform legislation nationally and in the states. But for many, taking a job and going off welfare resulted in an economic loss because health care, housing and other benefits were cut off.

The people who clean our buildings do work that is often hard, frequently unpleasant and always necessary -- and at hours when most other workers are home with their families. If nothing else, the new janitors' contract in Cincinnati places a higher value on such work. That, we believe, is fair.

Cincinnati janitors who clean most of downtown's office buildings have their first labor contract.

The contract between the Service Employees International Union representing about 1,200 janitors and the area's eight largest cleaning companies was signed Saturday. The contract goes into effect in October.

"This is a huge victory for our families and for our neighborhoods," janitor Lauressie Tillman said. "We showed what can be done -- what must be done -- to make Cincinnati a better city to live in."

The janitors had been negotiating with the cleaning companies since March and on July 14 authorized their union to call a strike if a contract could not be worked out.

Since then, the eights companies -- ABM, Jancoa, Professional Maintenance of Cincinnati, Aetna Building Maintenance, Scioto Corp, NSG, OneSource and GSF -- had been in off-and-on negotiations with the janitors.

The union and the companies began their latest round of negotiations Wednesday, and, after two days of talks, the two sides arrived at a consensus Friday night. The janitors voted to accept the contract Saturday.

The agreement mandates that by 2012, wages will rise from $6.85 to $9.80 for janitors, some of whom pocketed as little as $28 a day. Janitors also will have six paid holidays and, in 2010, will have access to health care for $20 a month.

"Cincinnati won big today," said janitor Linda Watson, of Price Hill. "I'm proud to say we won a better future for hard-working people in our city."

The janitors also won the right to work more hours, increasing the shifts from four hours an evening to at least seven within 36 months.

The contract is among those that custodial workers nationwide have achieved recently. Unions in both Houston and Miami recently negotiated contracts with cleaning companies. Custodial workers are negotiating for contracts in Indianapolis and Columbus .