Wojcik reports: "In all eight cities affected by the strike this week, janitors clean the offices of some of the wealthiest corporations in the world including Chevron, Hines, Brookfield, Shell Oil, and JPMorgan Chase."

The Houston janitors strike is spreading. (photo: SEIU)

Janitors' Strike in Houston Spreads to Eight Cities

By John Wojcik, The Indypendent

17 July 12

oday, the Houston janitors' strike, now in its second week, will spread to eight cities across the country.

The janitors, represented by Local 1 of the Service Employees International Union, will throw up picket lines in front of corporate offices in Minneapolis, Washington D.C., Seattle, San Ramon, Los Angeles and Oakland Calif., Boston, and Denver. The strikes are being called, the union says, to support the janitors in Houston.

There will also be support rallies in more than a dozen cities throughout the U.S. and Canada. SEIU represents some 150,000 janitors throughout the United States.

In Houston now 400 janitors are on strike in 18 buildings with more expected to join the strike this week.

The strike has garnered significant national support.

Earlier this month the activist actor Danny Glover and Texas Representatives Al Green and Sheila Jackson, both Democrats, announced the formation of a task force to protect the janitor's first amendment rights.

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous spoke about the plight of the janitors during his keynote address at the NAACP's convention in Houston last Monday.

"What's happening in Houston is a microcosm of what's happening to our whole country," said Elsa Caballero, State Director for SEIU in Texas. "The gap between the richest one percent and working families is growing every day. It's going to take bold action to rebuild our country's middle class."

The janitors' contract in Houston expired on May 31. The janitors had requested a raise from $8.35 per hour to $10 per hour, spread over four years.

The janitorial contractors responded by offering only a 50-cent raise, spread over five years.

Saying that a pay scale like that would guarantee they remain in poverty, janitors turned down the offer.

When the companies responded to their rejection of the offer with harassment and intimidation the workers called a July 11 citywide strike.

In all eight cities affected by the strike this week, janitors clean the offices of some of the wealthiest corporations in the world including Chevron, Hines, Brookfield, Shell Oil, and JPMorgan Chase.

The low salaries in Houston are particularly disgraceful, the union says, because in that city commercial real estate is doing better than anywhere else in the U.S. Average commercial rents in Houston are higher than rents in Chicago, for example, where janitors are paid more than three times as much annually as Houston janitors.

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+38 # newsmom 2012-07-17 20:22

please god, let the secretaries refuse to empty the trash and replace the toner and bring the coffee and force their greedy, self-absorbed,n arcissistic bosses to get a taste of who really enables their money-grubbing corporations to work smoothly..here' s hoping the walkout also includes the office workers who mop and replace the toilet paper and scrub the toilets.

+8 # JetpackAngel 2012-07-17 23:08

Or let them replace the toilet paper in the executive bathrooms with fast food napkins.

+8 # Lloyd Wagner 2012-07-18 04:23

"The janitorial contractors responded by offering only a 50-cent raise, spread over five years."

That'd be 12 1/2 cents a year ... startin' next year, ha ha.

+4 # dick 2012-07-18 05:30

If the Obama administration would announce that illegal immigrant replacements (scabs) will not be tolerated, Houston janitors could begin their climb toward $16hr. + benefits?

+12 # conniejo 2012-07-18 05:36

I am not a union worker, but I fought for the public unions in Wisconsin. We tried to get private sector union workers across the country to understand that if the recall in Wisconsin failed, the attack on workers would spread rapidly to the private sector. Many did understand this, and we received a lot of support from many union members in the private sector. Nevertheless, 38% of members of union households voted for Walker. Now, we have at least two private sector unions on strike because their company owners were emboldened by the election results. The janitorial staff members are victims of the same arrogance of owners who read the Wisconsin vote as an invitation to attack workers. We need MORE unions, not fewer, in order to fight the greed and callousness of the 1%. We wish the janitors every success in their fight and urge them to stick it out for the results they seek.

+11 # Gootarama 2012-07-18 05:55

In the recall vote of Scott Walker in Wisconsin over the public union issue, exit polling showed that 37% of union members voted to keep him as governor...WTF, have the working poor and lower middle class drunk the Kool-Ade that the elite wealthy are doling out in huge expensive campaigns financed by the likes of the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Foster Friese etc? As long as we're divided, the plutocrats will get stronger and more bold in their attacks on the 99%ers and the Obama administration and moderate/libera l congresspersons . Look at the attacks on Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH). Carpet bombing TV with ads influence decisions...yes even those against our own self interest. As long as the big money continues (almost all anonymously) our democracy will be up for grabs to the highest bidder. They have the money, we have the vote!!! We need to be aware, informed, active and get off our butts and go campaign and vote for candidates that will work for us. I'm in solidarity with these SEIU folks and will work with them if they strike in Cincinnati.

+7 # lorenbliss 2012-07-18 09:55

As more and more of us are realizing, Democrat support for unions is as much a Big Lie as "American democracy" itself.

Enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act, for which Google, was promised by Obama the Orator and the Democratic Party as part of "change we can believe in."

EFCA would literally have resurrected organized labor, giving U.S. workers essentially the same rights workers have in Europe and civilization in general.

But killing EFCA was among the first betrayals inflicted on us by Obama when he changed into Barack the Betrayer – this as his Democrats dropped all pretense of being anything more than enablers of the One Percent.

The efforts of Reps. Green and Jackson are thus revealed as nothing more than election year posturing.

What we desperately need here in Sweatshop Nation is a genuine Labor Party, relentlessly socialist if not implacably Marxian.

Meanwhile we should stand with SEIU and any other union that dares challenge the Ruling Class.

A member of the National Writers Union, a former member of the American Newspaper Guild, I -- though old (72) and crippled -- have picketed with SEIU and will damn well do so again if the strike expands to Tacoma.

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