In November 2001, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 50, started contract negotiations with the Contract Cleaners Association (CCA), an association of eight cleaning companies who control the market on janitorial and custodial work in St. Louis. Ever since then, it has been an up hill battle for the more than 3,000 St. Louis janitors represented by SEIU Local 50, who have been struggling for a living wage and a new contract.
Cleaning companies make bids to property owners and managers for contracts. Local 50 has focused on CCA because they have the most contracts, therefore the largest market share. Capitalism is a profit driven system and CCA understands that the lowest bid gets the contract, thus the largest market share. Because CCA is the single largest cleaning entity in St. Louis, it is able to keep the contract minimum artificially low. Keeping wages low and eliminating competitors, ensuring profit maximization.
According to Charlie Hatcher, Director of Organizing for Local 50, St. Louis janitors are getting paid \"poverty wages.\" Local 50 started negotiating for a $1 per hour wage increase, healthcare, bereavement leave, short staffing bonuses, pension plans and 13 paid holidays - including Dr. Martin Luther King\'s birthday. The average St. Louis janitors\' wage is $6.50 per hour, 30% below the national average of $9 to $10 per hour. Many work two or three jobs, without health care or a pension plan.
Local 50 had been negotiating contracts by cleaning companies, not by individual shop or building. This means any contract signed by CCA, or any member of that association, would encompass all the buildings where they employ janitors. In the final analysis, thousands of janitors\' wages fall under the umbrella of CCA. Around 80% of all the downtown buildings, cleaned by members of Local 50, fall under the tentacles of CCA. CCA wanted Local 50 to negotiate a separate contract per building. This would be a long, tedious, time consuming and expensive process. The only other option would be to accept the 25 cent offer. CCA believed that Local 50 wouldn\'t be able to withstand a long campaign and expected the union to capitulate.
Local 50 wasn\'t attempting to organize the unorganized, even though non-union cleaning companies have signed on to the new contract. This has turned many non-union buildings into union buildings and turned the janitors into union members.
After months of negotiating, CCA said its final offer was a 25 cent per hour annual wage increase. Local 50 refused this offer, calling it \"chump change.\" In previous contracts, a provision was put in place guaranteeing that all contracts signed by Local 50 would be equal to, or greater than the contracts signed by independent cleaning companies. The CCA offer does not come close to the package signed by the independent cleaning companies. For Local 50 to sign a contract with CCA for the 25 cent wage increase would make the other contracts null and void. The other janitors would be hung out to dry. In January 2002, members of Local 50 voted unanimously to go on strike.
From the beginning of the St. Louis Justice for Janitors Campaign, there have been three key elements. The first was a bottom-up mobilization of the members of Local 50, coalition partners, like Jobs with Justice (JWJ), other unions, political, community and religious leaders. The second was to put top-down pressure on the cleaning companies by educating the Business Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) and the individual property owners as to how the cleaning companies are exploiting the janitors. The third strategy was to put direct pressure on one single cleaning company in CCA. This strategy was meant to make an example of one company: Mitch Murch Maintenance Management (4M). 4M is a key player in CCA. They hold a disproportionate share of the contracts. When 4M signs on to the new contract, the remaining members of CCA will have very few options.
Since contract negotiations started, the janitors and their allies have been pressuring cleaning companies from the bottom up by picketing and protesting. The leadership of Local 50 has been trying to influence the top-down decision making process by attending BOMA meetings and talking to the individual property owners.
The operating expenses of business owners would increase by 5% if they signed a new union contract. The average rental cost for a 100,000 square foot building in St. Louis is $15.92 per square foot. A new union contract translates into a 1.6 cent increase per rental dollar. \"Although BOMA is not the direct employer, they control the purse,\" said Hatcher.
One of the larger actions taken by Local 50 was on April 26 when more than 300 people protested outside of the Downtown St. Louis Branch of Bank of America building. 4M employed the janitors that clean the Bank of America building. At the protest Doris James, a janitor employed by CCA member, Spann Cleaning Company, said, \"We are over worked and underpaid. The bosses are paid well. We should get paid well. We earned it. We need more money! And we are going to fight until we get it.\" Members of JWJ and the Communication Workers of America (CWA) were also there. Larry Cohen, Executive Vice President of CWA, said, \"Working together we can make a difference. Working together we are stronger. Working together we can win.\"
Recently Local 50 has been holding weekly rallies and protests at the Laclede Gas building, also cleaned by 4M. One janitor said, \"I\'ve been working for Mitch Murch for 14 years. I make $6.95 an hour. I have no health benefits and no pension plan.\" She said she was making $6.70 before CCA instituted an across the board quarter increase in wages in an attempt to weaken the campaign. \"Some janitors think the fight is over,\" said Santois Tucker. \"But I\'m worth more than a quarter and I\'m gonna keep fighting.\"
Fourteen independent cleaning companies have signed on to the new contract which includes a $7.25 hourly starting wage and a 70 cent wage increase in the second year of the new contract. Local 50 President Donald Rudd said, \"no janitor will get less than a 75 cent increase in the first year [and] 70 cents in the second year.\"
Janitors making $6.50 per hour will get an increase of $1.45 over the next two years, bringing the average wage close to eight dollars an hour. In addition to wage increases, medical health insurance contributions will increase by 500%. Employer pension contributions will increase to 20 cent per hour from 08 cent per hour. Janitors also will receive paid bereavement leave; Martin Luther King Holiday, short staffing bonuses and an employer paid training fund.
Local 50 also signed a new contract with St. Louis University (SLU). Janitors at SLU used to be employed by Preferred Cleaning Company. They are now directly employed by SLU and will receive a 66% wage increase in the first year of the new contract. SLU has also agreed to cover the tuition costs of the janitors and their families.
First Bank recently made a commitment to put twenty-one First Bank branches out to bid. \"Mitch Murch used to have those building accounts,\" Hatcher said. \"Not anymore! Now independent cleaning companies, that pay decent wages, will get those accounts. Mitch Murch is gonna feel the pinch,\" he continued. \"And this single account change has cost them close to $2 million.\"
The hundreds of janitors employed under the new contracts are now making a living wage. The cleaning companies who have agreed to the wage increases, healthcare benefits, pension plans, short staffing bonuses and 13 paid holidays have set an example for other companies to follow. These successes would not have been possible without struggle, solidarity and a strong union.
Tony Pecinovsky is a regular contributor to the People\'s Weekly World, and a Member of the YCL National Council.
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