LOS ANGELES – More than 1,200 janitors and their supporters demonstrated today in Los Angeles outside the nation’s largest convention for corporate real estate executives. The demonstration was part of statewide efforts to win a new contract with higher wages, access to health care and respect, among other issues, for the state’s 20,000 janitors that keep California’s top industries – including commercial real estate, high-tech and bio-tech – clean and open for business.
Today’s demonstration came just hours after contract negotiations began in Los Angeles. Cleaning contractors involved in the negotiations such as ABM/One Source, Able, DMS, Merchants and others comprise 85% of the corporate real estate market in Los Angeles.
SEIU Justice for Janitors activities on Thursday focused on working women in honor of International Women’s Day. Most janitors are women who work full time but still earn wages so low that many can’t afford decent housing for their families.
“I used to be able to buy two gallons of milk for what just one costs now. How can we meet our basic needs and pay our rent?” asked janitor Carolina Gomez, mother of two who works full time as a janitor cleaning high-rise office buildings and must also work weekends cleaning homes just to make ends meet.
Average wages for janitors in Los Angeles is $21,600 which is well below half of what the Economic Policy Institute says it takes for a family of four to survive in California. Some Los Angeles County janitors earn as little as $8.35 an hour.
Along West 7th Street, a television production shoot came to a halt when the 1,200 janitors marched by waving mops and brooms, drumming and chanting “One Union, One Voice, One Dream!” As the march crossed a bridge over the 110 FWY, drivers in cars honked their horns and waved in support to janitors carrying signs that read “Women Working For Stronger Communities.”
Los Angeles Police Department blocked traffic ahead of the march as it neared the Westin Bonaventure Hotel on Figueroa, site of the Corporate Real Estate Conference. Downtown businesspeople waved from the patios of cafes and restaurants as a news helicopter hovered above. The march encircled the entire city block before wending its way to the corner of 5th and Flower, where demonstrators sat in the crosswalks and shut down the street for nearly 20 minutes around noontime, chanting “Si Se Puede” and waving signs that read, “A Better Future is Worth Fighting For!”
The march continued through downtown streets that were blocked by LAPD and at least a half dozen red Metro Rapid busses were backed up along 5th Street at Hill Street as the march finally entered Pershing Square. Office workers lunching in the park joined in the rally by dancing, pumping their fists in the air and chanting “Justice for Janitors, Si Senior!”
Elected leaders called on the corporate real estate industry and cleaning contractors to take responsibility for good jobs for our communities, with decent wages and access to health care. Those in attendance today were Los Angeles City Council members Richard Alarcon and Ed Reyes, Long Beach City Councilmember Tonia Reyes-Uranga; SEIU’s endorsed candidate for Assembly District 46, John Perez; and former Assembly members Jerome Horton and Paul Koretz. Representatives from the offices of U.S. Congresswoman Laura Richardson; California Senate Majority-Leader Gloria Romero; California Senator Gil Cedillo and Assembly members Merv Dymally; Warren Furutani; Felipe Fuentes; SEIU’s endorsed candidate for Senate District 23 Lloyd Levine; Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Nunez; and Anthony Portantino. Union members from Writers Guild of America West, AFSCME and community groups such as ACORN also participated.
More than 20,000 of the state’s janitors united in Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1877 have contracts that are set to expire this April. The Justice for Janitors 2008 California Contract Campaign is the janitor union’s largest statewide mobilization effort in history.