New Haven Independent

They belong to a crew of member-organizers from a “Justice for Janitors” drive quietly getting underway in town. Local 32BJ of the SEIU is fielding the effort.

Ivan Almendarez (second from left in picture above, and pictured below) grew up in Managua, Nicaragua. He’s been cleaning buildings in New York and volunteering for the nationwide Justice for Janitors campaign, which hires janitors to take temporary leaves from the cleaning jobs to enlist union support. Two days ago he showed up in New Haven to take part in the effort to organize some 350 janitors in two dozen downtown office buildings, including 3 and 265 Church St.

Local 32BJ has been organizing janitors for years in Hartford and Fairfield Counties. According to union district chief Kurt Westby, the outfit has unionized 4,500 janitors in 250 buildings so far in the Nutmeg state. Westby said members’ wages have risen from minimum wage to about $10.50 an hour. Around 86 percent of them also receive health insurance on the job now. (That figure is more like 30 percent in Fairfield County, where the drive took place more recently.)

The local hasn’t opened a New Haven County office yet but plans to soon. It hasn’t yet publicly announced the New Haven campaign.

More than half of the janitors working in area buildings are immigrants, many from Latin America, according to organizers. Among those joining Ivan Almendarez at City Hall Wednesday were Jose Rodrigues (far left in top picture), 64; he was born in Island Madeira, Portugal, and currently earns $11.40 an hour, plus health benefits, at the Aetna building in Hartford. Francisco Reyes, 54, (far right in top picture) hails from Lima, Peru. He’s currently on leave from janitorial work to work on the unionizing campaign alongside Alemendarez.

The crew showed up at City Hall for Wednesday’s rally announcing union support for John DeStefano’s gubernatorial campaign. Local 32BJ was among the unions making the endorsement. Almendarez made a speech at the rally.

“He understands the struggle of immigrant workers,” Almendarez said of DeStefano.

Almendarez seemed to have a natural rapport and a genuine fondness for the older janitors he pulled together for a photo. He has been in the U.S. about as long as John DeStefano has been mayor of New Haven. He still keeps up with politics back home in Nicaragua. Will the Sandinistas return to power in upcoming elections? “I hope not,” he said with a smile.