About 100 union janitors and supporters marched around the Brewery Blocks March 15 in downtown Portland’s Pearl District to protest a decision to dump a union janitorial firm and hire a non-union firm instead. Portland-based Arke Management oversees building services for the five-block development, which occupies the former site of the Blitz-Weinhard Brewery. Until late last year, Arke contracted with the union-signatory janitorial firm ABM to clean Block 1 and Block 4. Block 1 is the building that includes Whole Foods. Block 4 includes M Financial Plaza. Local 49 says Arke brought in non-union Millennium Building Services, displacing five Local 49 members. The union is calling on the building’s owner, JP Morgan Chase, to reverse course. According to Local 49, union janitors make $18 an hour and get a pension and fully paid employee health insurance, while non-union janitors typically make the Portland area minimum wage of $15.45 and get more expensive, less generous health coverage and no pension.
Arke Management did not return a call from the Labor Press.
HOW TO HELP
Local 49 is calling on union supporters to contact Arke Management at 503-382-8344 or [email protected] and ask them to use a union janitorial company at all the Brewery Blocks properties they manage.
