SAN FRANCISCO — At a time when the United States' labour movement is in the doldrums, a union of low-paid, largely foreign-born workers is reviving the militancy, imagination, and high morale of the great strikes of the 1930s.
On April 3, 8500 members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 1877, walked off their jobs at the major office buildings in Los Angeles, California. These are the janitors, the almost invisible men and women who work late at night cleaning offices and toilets in commercial buildings and banks.
A typical union member, Maria Santania, a native of El Salvador, has cleaned offices for 15 years. Her pay is $6.50 an hour. One half of her income goes towards rent on a one bedroom apartment for herself and two children. Without a car she spends hours on one of the worst bus systems in the country. Her job does not give her a life, only an existence.
Her only hope lies in the union. Some union members earn $8.50 an hour. The union is demanding $1 an hour extra for each of the three years of the new contract. This would bring their pay to $15,000 a year, the officially designated poverty level for a family of four. The employers have offered only a 50 cent raise for the next year.
Rolling strike
The janitors work in buildings scattered all over the city. Putting a few pickets in front of each building would not be effective. Instead, the union is bringing their cause to the entire community.
A reporter for the Los Angeles Times describes how it is done, "For 10 days the chanting red-shirt-clad strikers have been a nagging presence, inserting themselves into the consciousness of workaday Los Angeles as they march across town or cluster outside the gates of office towers ... The union calls it a rolling strike, building day by day, pulling in the San Fernando Valley, Pasadena ... and today, Los Angeles International Airport. No one knows where it will go next — not even the organisers."
One visit to Beverly Hills, one of the wealthiest communities in the country, startled the residents when 400 slogan-shouting workers marched past boutiques and jewellery stores. "We are showing the contrast in wealth. One of our themes is closing the gap between rich and poor", said a union spokesperson.
Decisions are made on the run. Prominent building owners resist union overtures, and within hours, camps are sprouting in front of their headquarters. The organisation of the janitors' strike is a sight to behold. And unions across the country are sending representatives to take it in.
"I've never seen anything like it", said a field representative of the giant union confederation, the AFL-CIO. "The membership has complete ownership of this strike".
These militant tactics have won the union important allies. Both the county supervisors and the City Council have voted to support the strike. Teamsters will not cross their picket lines. Cardinal Roger Mahony recognised the many Latinos in the union. "They are the faceless, nameless, voiceless. Now they are visible, thanks be to God", he declared.
The nature of janitorial services in the US complicates the bargaining process. Few managers of large buildings deal directly with the union. Instead they contract with maintenance companies who hire the janitors. As one building owner put it, "We actually don't feel we have a dog in this fight". They could, however, sign up with a non-union maintenance firm for a lower fee.
The maintenance firms that hire the janitors are scarcely "mom and pop" operations. Eighteen firms hold the contracts for 70% of US office buildings. One firm, One Source, is a subsidiary of a company based in Belize, Central America. The chief executive of American Building Maintenance earns a salary of $605,107 and received a bonus of $496,466 last year.
All maintenance firms are concerned about competition from non-union companies, unless they have non-union divisions themselves.
Different
The union's answer to this threat is organising the unorganised. The threat of non-union or scab workers is not as great as it might be — the economic boom is creating a labour shortage and tightened border controls are limiting the inflow of immigrant workers.
Another factor strengthening the janitors' hand is the wide recognition that millions are not sharing in the general prosperity: that wages have been falling far below the poverty level. A number of cities have passed "living wage" ordinances that decree that concerns doing business with the city must pay $9 to $11 an hour, plus health benefits.
The SEIU is using this ammunition as it prepares to confront the maintenance firms in other cities. It carefully sets its contract dates a month or so apart so they could roll from city to city in a campaign, "Justice for Janitors", that gathers strength as it goes. Soon Chicago and New York will hear their theme song, "We are the union, the mighty, mighty union!" on Main Street and Broadway.
The SEIU fights in a different way because its membership is different. It is made up of Latinos, Filipinos, Chinese, other Asians and blacks, some of whom have recently arrived from Africa. These minorities will soon be the majority in California.
New to the union, they are not made apathetic through years of business-style unionism. For many, joining a union and fighting the bosses is a crusade: with banners, songs and slogans.
Hotels, hospitals, restaurants and the garment industry are all staffed by a similar mix of immigrant labour. They are joining unions with the outlook and spirit of the SEIU. We cannot be sure how far this very favourable tendency will go, but it must affect the labour movement in general.
Right now, many an exploited worker is being stirred by the janitors' slogan, "Si, se puede" — "Yes, it can be done".
BY HAYDEN PERRY