New Haven Independent

Wearing purple “Janitors for Justice T shirts,” banging empty buckets and purple inflated plastic “ThunderStix,” the crowd marched in support of a union organizing drive at 45 area buildings covering more than 10 million square feet of commercial space. The drive is aimed at 400 non-union workers like Cristina Mendez (center). Mendez, 24, comes from Mexico; she said she earns $7.40 with no health benefits cleaning a building at Science Park. She marched up Church Street alongside Elvia Saavedra. Mendez earns the typical wage hourly wage for a New Haven janitor; few receive benefits, paid holidays or sick days.

Local 32BJ of the SEIU quietly opened a downtown office a few months ago to launch the drive, and has built support among the largely Spanish-speaking custodians. It won similar drives in Hartford and Fairfield County, where unionized janitors now earn $10 or $11 an hour plus health benefits and vacations. The union hopes to get as many cleaning contractors from local buildings as possible by July 1 to agree to card-check elections. “The people who clean the office buildings in New Haven — they don’t stand alone!” 32BJ Secretary Treasurer Hector Figueroa (pictured) told the crowd assembled on the upper Green before the march down Temple Street, over to Crown, then back up Church to City Hall.

Lending their support Tuesday were local Latino ministers who were active in helping unions in battles against Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital, like Rev. Jose Champagne, one of the city’s fieriest political orators. “We have won many struggles in New Haven,” Champagne declared. “This is one more we are going to win.”

Six Omega Express coaches and two New Britain Transportation buses brought the custodians from Hartford, Stamford, and New York City to the rally, then parked in the right lane of Temple Street cutting through the Green.

Sara Pastorelli (pictured center), a Peruvian-born custodian who works at the Hartford Civic Center for a company called ABM (which also operates in the New Haven area), got in the spirit. She banged her ThunderStix to make noise when not using it to bop her friends on the head.

Politically, the day belonged to Mayor John DeStefano. He has backed the union drive from the start; the union has in turn backed his candidacy for governor. DeStefano declared Tuesday “Justice for Janitors Day” in New Haven. “Are fair wages and health benefits what America is all about?” he shouted from the steps of City Hall, the march’s terminus. “Yes!” the crowd called on cue.

The reelection campaign of U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman was also visible at the rally. There were no visible signs of the campaign of Lieberman’s challenger for the Democratic Party nomination, Ned Lamont, who has had trouble attracting support from organized labor.

Connecticut Attorney General Dick Blumenthal was, as always, a hit with the crowd. He unwittingly ended up holding a sign promoting an anti-Semitic political fringe group called ANSWER, which has helped hijack anti-Iraq War marches into obsessive hate-Israel and pro-Hamas events and barred Jewish war opponent Rabbi Michael Lerner from appearing on stage because he believes Israel has a right to exist.