June 2000 (Vol. 110, No. 3)
'Justice For Janitors' Goals: Were They Set High Enough?
By Ken Boettcher <thepeople at igc.org>
As the last issue of THE PEOPLE went to press, the Service Employees International Union was working to expand its Los Angeles strike of 8,500 members of Local 1877 to SEIU locals in several other major U.S. cities. Now, weeks later, the SEIU's so-called Justice for Janitors 2000 Campaign is coming to a close as several of those strikes, including the one in Los Angeles, have ended in what the union has trumpeted as "victories."
In city after city, new labor agreements between the janitors and the building maintenance contractors who are their employers provide wage increases and, in some cases, benefit improvements.
But are these increases really "victories"?
There is no question that the workers deserve victories. They labor under often adverse conditions at hard work usually considered demeaning in existing society. In many cases, they fought long and hard to become part of a union. They courageously voted to go on strike despite the increased hardships involved, and then conducted themselves with courage and honor when they were out on the picket lines. When the new labor contracts expire three years from now, however, most will still be making less than $10 an hour. They will still be struggling to make ends meet and still suffering because that is about all that $10 an hour can guarantee these days. That is enough to put these "victories" into perspective and show how hollow they are for the janitors.
For the SEIU officialdom, however, there is no doubt that the new contracts constitute victories. After all, the stated goal of the Justice for Janitors 2000 campaign was simply "to improve wages and working conditions in the janitorial industry," as one SEIU Web document put it. The union met that goal -- and by meeting it locked the janitors into near-starvation-level wages for the life of the new contracts.
Indeed, a primary UNSTATED goal of any business union was also met -- that being to prove to the employers that the SEIU can still deliver labor peace at not too high a price. As a report on the SEIU's Web site about the Los Angeles strike put it, "The three-week strike forged new relationships between the janitors' union and many of Los Angeles' top building owners." No wonder. The SEIU labor merchandisers have in this year's negotiations shown that they can deliver the promise of three years of labor peace at a very agreeable price per head -- and not just in Los Angeles. Here are the actual figures:
- In downtown Chicago, the strike had barely gotten under way when employers agreed that 5,500 SEIU janitors should receive a pay increase of $1.10 spread over the three-year life of the new contract.
- In suburban Chicago, where employers resisted for two weeks, 4,500 SEIU janitors will receive family health care coverage and an increase of $1.35 per hour over three years. Three long, hard years from now they will reach the glorious wage of $8.00 per hour.
- Fifteen thousand New York City SEIU members who work for residential building service contractors will receive pay increases of 3.5 percent per year over three years, improved health and pension benefits and a training fund that will help them gain access to the Internet.
- In Los Angeles, Local 1877 members who work in suburban areas will receive a $1.50 per hour increase over three years (in addition to health benefits and a 40-cent-an-hour raise they got in January). Downtown workers will receive an increase of $1.90 per hour over three years. Both groups received a one-time $500 bonus that won't begin to cover the wages they lost during the strike. The highest paid among them will have soared to the incredible heights of $9.80 per hour three years from now.
- In Cleveland, SEIU janitors will receive 22-25 percent pay increases over three years, about the same as in Los Angeles.
- Portland SEIU janitors, according to the SEIU's Web site, "secured" a citywide master contract with Portland building service contractors and won "significant pay increases." Significant to whom one wonders?
- The SEIU strike in San Diego ended shortly before this issue of THE PEOPLE went to press, with an increase of 50 cents per hour in the first year of a three-year contract, 40 cents per hour in the second, and $171 per month toward health insurance in the third. Even with these increases, in 2003 janitors in downtown San Diego will be earning only $7.90 per hour.
The workers, of course, deserve every penny of these increases and more. They deserve, Socialists say, the economic abundance and security that all workers deserve -- something that requires the ABOLITION OF CAPITALISM and the ESTABLISHMENT OF SOCIALISM for them to get. What they got was, of course, nowhere near what they deserve.
What they got was what they can expect from a business union like the SEIU. Because it accepts the capitalist system of exploitation, it, like other such unions, cannot challenge capitalism. The SEIU, like other unions that support wage exploitation, merely want to horse trade with capitalists to keep their own bureaucrats in the privileged positions to which they are accustomed. The labor power of the workers is the "horse" they trade.
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-- Marta Russell author Los Angeles, CA Beyond Ramps: Disability at the End of the Social Contract http://www.commoncouragepress.com/russell_ramps.html