> World Socialist Web Site http://www.wsws.org
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Union officials, Democrats push for end to Los Angeles janitors strike
>
> By Gerardo Nebbia and Jerry White
> 14 April 2000
>
> Local politicians and the leaders of the Service Employees International
> Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO are working to end the 11-day-old strike by
> 8,500 janitors in Los Angeles County, on terms that are far short of the
> workers' demands for living wages.
>
> The maintenance workers, most of whom are Latin American immigrants earning
> between $5.75 and $7.90 an hour, walked out on April 3. An association of
> 18 maintenance contractors, including major national and international
> firms, has offered the workers hourly raises between 80 cents and $1.30
> over a three-year period. SEIU Local 1877 originally demanded a $1 per hour
> raise in each of the three years, but reports now indicate the union is
> willing to accept less.
>
> Officially, there are no negotiations going on. However SEIU negotiators
> and Los Angeles officials, including Republican Mayor Richard Riordan and
> Cardinal Roger Mahony, have been in contact with the building owners and
> real estate developers to work out a deal that the contractors would
> accept. Last Sunday, after the San Francisco Chronicle reported that
> negotiators for the contractors might improve their offer, Mike Garcia,
> president of SEIU Local 1877, declared that the union was willing to
> retreat on its demands.
>
> The union proposals are already grossly inadequate. Even if workers
> achieved a $3 an hour wage increase, this would only bring their annual
> income to around $15,000--the official poverty level for a family of
> four--leaving them unable to pay for basic necessities, particularly in a
> city with a high cost
> of living like Los Angeles. The $3 raise would also leave janitors making
> far less than their counterparts did in 1980, before contractors broke the
> union and replaced the employees.
>
> The planned retreat by the union is not due to any loss of support for the
> strike. On the contrary, thousands of janitors have engaged in picketing,
> protests and rallies, defying arrests by the LAPD and violence by
> strikebreakers. The walkout has disrupted the operations of many office
> buildings, including the headquarters of some of the biggest US
> corporations. At the McGuire-Thomas Gas Company Towers in downtown Los
> Angeles, for instance, workers report that bathrooms with overflowing
> toilets were being shut down because scab janitorial crews could not carry
> out essential maintenance tasks.
>
> During the week additional maintenance workers joined the walkout in the
> San Fernando Valley, Pasadena, Long Beach, Ventura, the LA International
> Airport, and in San Diego, about 110 miles south of Los Angeles. Thousands
> of other maintenance workers have expressed support for the strike during
> protests in other major US cities, such as Chicago, New York, Philadelphia
> and Portland, Oregon, where contracts covering more than 100,000 workers
> are expiring in the coming weeks and months.
>
> The janitors' struggle has also inspired other low-wage workers in the
> region to fight for improved conditions. On Tuesday, April 11, home health
> care workers in San Mateo County in central California interrupted midday
> traffic during a protest for higher wages. Helmeted police arrested dozens
> of SEIU Local 715 members, who make little more than the minimum wage.
>
> Moreover, the strike has won widespread sympathy among working and middle
> class people throughout Los Angeles because it has called attention to the
> deep social and economic divide in the area. There is widespread feeling
> that in a city where movie stars and corporate executives flaunt their
> wealth workers should earn a decent standard of living.
>
> Typical were the comments of a word processor at the strikebound Arco Plaza
> tower, who told the Los Angeles Times that he and most coworkers supported
> the janitors' demands. "They're taking care of people who make millions,"
> he said. "What's another dollar?" The strike has even won sympathy from
> more privileged sections of the population, as was shown in the recent
> anonymous donation of $500,000 to the janitors' strike fund.
>
> Given these favorable conditions, why is the SEIU willing to settle for so
> little, so fast? One reason is that the union officials do not want the
> strike to disrupt their relations with the Democratic Party. This summer
> Los Angeles and Philadelphia will host the Democratic and Republican
> presidential conventions. The AFL-CIO has already agreed not to have any
> strikes in Philadelphia during that time and a similar agreement is being
> negotiated for Los Angeles. No doubt a speedy resolution of the janitors'
> strike is part of this process.
>
> The AFL-CIO bureaucracy is throwing millions of dollars behind the
> presidential campaign of Al Gore and wants to prevent any struggles that
> would expose the Democrats for what they are: defenders of big business,
> like their Republican counterparts. Moreover, the union officials want to
> dissipate any momentum towards a national strike by maintenance and other
> low-paid workers.
>
> SEIU and AFL-CIO officials have brought Jesse Jackson and other Democrats
> before workers and promoted them as "friends of labor." They have told
> workers their struggle could be won by getting city councilmen and county
> supervisors to pass resolutions in favor of the janitors. One of those who
> sponsored a recent resolution was Democratic Assembly Member Gilbert
> Cedillo, a former leader of SEIU Local 660, notorious for imposing sell-out
> contracts on county workers.
>
> The union officials' alliance with the Democrats blocks any genuine
> struggle to mobilize support by the janitors strike. This very same
> strategy has led to the isolation and defeat of one strike after another
> over the last 20 years.
>
> The overriding concern of the union officials is not winning a decent
> contract for janitors, but preserving their relations with the employers
> and the Democrats. From the onset of the SEIU's "justice for janitors"
> campaign in the mid-1980s, union officials have sought to contain the
> militancy of these workers and demonstrate to the employers that the union
> could be worked with. Throughout this period the SEIU has stressed that it
> is not seeking substantial wage increases, but "fairness."
>
> On these terms, the contractors, who had gotten rid of the union in Los
> Angeles in 1981, had little problem signing a contract that allowed them to
> keep paying poverty-level wages. The SEIU bureaucracy also benefited from
> this arrangement, as the influx of thousands of dues-paying members helped
> bolster its sagging membership rolls.
>
> In the cities where it has locals, the SEIU now says it represents up to 90
> percent of all service workers. In Washington, DC union membership went
> from 40 percent to 77 percent over the past five years. In Denver the union
> represents 75 percent of workers, up from zero five years ago. These
> organizing "successes" boosted the former president of the SEIU, John
> Sweeney, to the top spot in the AFL-CIO bureaucracy.