The cleaning contractors initially offered a total wage increase of $.50 an hour phased in over five years—so in 2016 the janitors would earn $8.85 an hour. The janitors asked for a raise to $10 an hour over three years.
In the end, the janitors accepted $9.35 an hour over four years, a 12 percent increase over their current pay. They also fought off an effort by the contractors that would have allowed them to underbid the union wage when competing against non-union shops.
It is distressing (though not surprising) that the janitors had to sacrifice to such an extent just to gain a raise of twenty-five cents an hour for four years. Houston is “Millionaire City,” after all, having added more millionaires to its population than any other city in the United States for two years running. These janitors sanitize the bathrooms and workspaces, empty the trash and vacuum the floors of some of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world: JPMorganChase, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Wells Fargo, KBR and Marathon Oil, to name a few. They do their work in the best-performing commercial real estate market in the US in terms of demand. Many in this predominantly female workforce literally have to run to clean more than 100 toilets in five hours each night.
Prior to the strike, the janitors earned about $8,684 annually. In four years, when they see their full raises, they will be paid about $10,000 annually.
This isn’t to say that what the janitors achieved isn’t significant and—more importantly—worthy of attention and great respect. They successfully organized in a right-to-work-state with a 3 percent private sector unionization rate. Texas is tied with Mississippi for having the highest proportion of minimum-wage jobs in the nation, and one in five people working in Houston makes less than $10 an hour.
Despite this anti-labor environment, over 500 workers went on strike, some were locked out and seventy-four were arrested in four civil disobedience actions.
“Any strike is hard, and any time that workers vote to go on strike it’s scary for them—it’s a huge sacrifice with a lot of unknowns,” Emily Heath, organizing director for SEIU Local 1, told me. “The resilience these workers showed—we didn’t lose people, people knew they had to see this through—they took incredible risks every day just being out on the streets, and they never questioned it. It was a struggle for better wages, and a better future for their kids. But it also became an example for Houstonians.”
Heath said that the janitors were “spurred on” by a “huge outpouring of community support—from other advocacy groups, labor unions, elected officials and people of faith.”
“I don’t think average people had understood that janitors are so poor—that they have to take on two or three jobs and don’t see their kids. The more we got those stories out there and opened people’s eyes, the more we learned that the average Houstonian actually cared and wanted people to do better,” she said. “And the workers came to realize that people were watching, and if they succeeded it could inspire other low-wage workers.”
David Madland, director of the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress, agrees that this win for the janitors is a significant one.
“It’s a real accomplishment—especially given the macro trends in the economy,” he said. “It also shows what an uphill battle all workers face and that we need to get those trends to be much more favorable to workers.”
He points to declining median wages, high unemployment and low unionization that all result workers having very little leverage.
“That’s the entire story of the last thirty years—that workers in general have had very little economic power,” he said. “Almost all of the gains have gone to those at the very top.”
Madland’s recent report, Making Our Middle Class Stronger—35 Policies to Revitalize America’s Middle Class, includes policy recommendations to create jobs; to raise standards from the bottom; and to make basic goods like housing, healthcare and education more affordable.
“It’s really about setting a floor, and lifting up the floor, so that when the economy does well everyone benefits,” said Madland. “It involves everything from pursuing full employment, to better rights to organize, to raising the minimum wage—and enforcing basic workplace standards—because even the minimum standards are so frequently violated.”
The janitors in Houston are now determined to now play a role in raising the labor standards for other low-wage workers in the city. SEIU plans to organize airport workers (who often work below minimum wage), as well as Houston’s security guards and food service workers. Beyond efforts to organize assist other workers in organizing their workplaces, the janitors are involved in broader campaigns to protect Medicaid and fight wage theft.
Heath said there is a clear lesson to be learned from the fact that it took a Herculean effort for these workers to win a modest raise in a city enjoying “unprecedented prosperity.”
“It’s clear that our country still doesn’t value the work of service workers. We have to fight harder to make sure that the people who are cleaning the buildings, taking care of the elderly, teaching our kids—all the different kinds of service work—that those folks are coming to the forefront and that people understand and hear their stories,” she said. “And we need to be up front about income inequality. I don’t think people want to accept that people earn $9,000 a year cleaning the offices of billionaires.”
“This is a small but significant win that low-wage workers can hopefully build on to make major change in the Houston labor market,” said Madland.
Conversation With Tianna Gaines-Turner
I’ve had the opportunity this year to get to know many participants in Witnesses to Hunger—a project in which people living in poverty use photographs and testimonials to advocate for change at the local, state and national levels.
Tianna Gaines-Turner is a Witness and a friend living in Philadelphia with her husband and children. She works at Drexel University’s School of Public Health and as a homecare worker for an elderly person. I spoke with her this week about what she’s been seeing since Pennsylvania eliminated its General Assistance program and nearly 70,000 disabled people lost their sole source of income. Our conversation led to a much broader discussion about the need to change how society perceives and helps people who are struggling.
One of Tianna’s projects through Drexel is operating a “Witness-to-Witness” peer mentoring program two days a week, open to anyone. She helps people get the food, energy assistance, healthcare, school supplies, community legal services and housing services they need.
“We look at everybody as a human being reaching out for assistance—that’s what it’s about at the end of the day,” Tianna told me. “It’s people treating people as a human being and not a docket number, not a case number and not a caseload.”
Tianna reported that since the elimination of General Assistance—the “safety net of last resort” for 68,000 Pennsylvanians (90 percent of whom are temporarily or permanently disabled)—she has seen a lot more people in need of food or utility assistance. She also said in low-income neighborhoods they are seeing “more home invasions, more robberies in broad daylight and increased street violence.”
“Me and my other Witnesses knew this was going to happen,” she said. “It’s not just about General Assistance—we have schools closing left and right, libraries being closed. Some of my neighbors in the community feel that we’ve come to a point where you have to be in your house before the sun goes down to keep yourself safe.”
Legal aid lawyer Michael Froehlich of Community Legal Services in Philadelphia told me he is also seeing a marked increase in desperation.
“We have received over eighty phone calls in the past few weeks from people who have lost General Assistance,” he said. “Many of them are being evicted or having their gas or electric shut off. Almost everyone I have spoken to is disabled. As bad as it is now, I’m really worried about this winter when it gets too cold to safely be on the street.”
In recent days, Tianna has worked with a newly homeless young man, who—when asked where he wanted to be in five years—said, “I don’t want to be dead or in jail.” She also spoke with a young woman and her partner, who both work, are raising their five children, and caring for her parents. They didn’t know how they could continue to take care of the woman’s mother, who now has cancer.
“It definitely can get to you—just hearing the stories, or sitting across the table looking at someone crying, and their children are sitting in the same room,” said Tianna. “Or maybe their children are disheveled in a way that you know they may have eaten something, but clearly not enough to give them the nutrition that they need. And then just speaking to the different people who are homeless right now. How can I not think about where that young homeless man is now? Is he okay? That’s the hard part—and we have to protect ourselves.”
Part of protecting herself involves running a “Safety, Emotions, Loss and Future” (SELF) group on Thursday mornings that many of her Witness sisters also participate in. The SELF group is also confidential and open to the public.
“It helps us to be able to talk about the things we hear and see, and the horrible stories and trauma that continue to go on from generation to generation,” said Tianna. “It’s a safe environment to speak about healthy ways to be better parents, better people to ourselves, and work through traumas. And it allows us to go back to our communities and let people know you can move beyond trauma and have a healthy life. Because that’s what the work of me and my Witness sisters is all about: breaking the generational cycle of hunger and poverty that continues to go on in low-income communities.”
The work Tianna is engaged in definitely makes her angry at the way low-income people are being portrayed in the current political climate.
“They always try to say, ‘Oh, they’re trying to scam; they’re telling a lie; they’re not really hungry; they’re just lazy, sitting back and waiting on the system,’” she said. “Have they ever sat down and had a conversation with someone on SSI or Medicaid? Have they sat down with anyone like a Witness to Hunger—who has overcome so much? Smart, educated people—who just want to sit down to a decent meal; earn a decent income from their jobs; have college savings accounts for their children; and just live a normal life? What’s normal? For no child to go to bed hungry, no senior to worry about how they are going to feed themselves, no church to worry about the overflow of people coming to get a hot meal and a warm place to sleep. But if we don’t make our voices heard now then things are not going to change.”
Update on “Talk About Poverty” (#TalkPoverty)
Good news: the Obama campaign has said it will soon respond to the first five questions—from Peter Edelman—in TheNation.com’s new “Talk About Poverty: Questions for Obama and Romney” series. Not too much luck with the Romney campaign so far, but we’ll keep trying.
Also, many of you have been actively tweeting the first post using #TAP as requested, and it’s greatly appreciated. The only problem is this: turns out I’m an idiot—#TAP was a terrible choice. It’s generic and brings up way too much spam. So, The Nation’s excellent community editor, Annie Shields, suggests that we instead use #TalkPoverty. She was kind enough not to add, “Duh, Greg.”
So keep tweeting, #TalkPoverty. And thanks—because the only way we get them to talk poverty is if we demand that they talk poverty.
Original Article
Source: the nation
Author: Greg Kaufmann
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