Portland janitors take to streets for justice

PORTLAND, OR -- Janitors in the Portland metropolitan area are taking their battle to improve wages and benefits to the streets and in the lobbies of large office buildings as part of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 49's "Justice for Janitors."

Justice for Janitors is a national program designed under the leadership of then-SEIU President John Sweeney -- who is now president of the national AFL-CIO -- to raise the wage floor of all janitors. Local unions use the campaign in varying degrees throughout the country. In San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., for instance, Justice for Janitors actions have stopped downtown traffic and blocked bridges in order to get their message heard.

Custodial workers are beginning to stir in the City of Roses. Last month a group of janitors chanted outside and rattled cans inside the Commonwealth Building, 421 SW 6th Ave., to protest being displaced by the building's owner, American Property Management. They also sent letters to tenants, including Multnomah County, which rents four floors at the office complex. County employees are members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 88.

American Building Maintenance Co. (ABM), the largest unionized custodial service in Portland, has cleaned the Commonwealth Building for more than eight years. But last year, soon after Local 49 had negotiated a small pay raise for ABM employees, American Property Management booted the company and hired Millennium Building Services, the largest non-union maintenance company in the city.

The average wage for union janitors is $7.50-$8 an hour, said Steven Ward, director of organizing for Local 49. Millennium, he said, subcontracts a lot of its work to independent contractors who barely make minimum wage. Justice for Janitors is planning a much larger rally at the Commonwealth Building on Monday, March 23, from 4 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. For more information about the rally or Justice for Janitors, call Ward at 238-6711.

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