Paul Bass Photo
Custodians at a Dec. 21 protest march leading up to the settlement.
Rather than start the new year on a strike picket line, custodians at downtown office buildings will gather to vote on a proposed new four-year contract that will boost their hourly wages by $1.70.
The custodians’ union, 32BJ SEIU, struck the deal this week with a group of 12 contracting companies that clean commercial buildings. The contract covers around 500 Greater New Haven custodians as well as another 1,600 custodians in Greater Hartford.
32BJ has scheduled a contract ratification vote for the New Haven custodians at the People’s Center (37 Howe St.) Saturday at 4:30 p.m. The custodians, many of whom are immigrants, had previously voted to authorize a strike in case the two sides did not reach an agreement by a New Year’s Eve deadline.
The new contract would gradually increase the custodians’ hourly wage in six increments from $12.40 to $14.10 by Oct. 1, 2019.
The company’s hourly contribution to full-timers’ health care would increase to $6.55 over that time as well. The company pays into a health insurance fund managed by the union; full-timers do not have to pay premiums. Protecting that benefit was a central goal of union negotiators.
Many of the custodians are part-timers, who receive scant health coverage and need to find other jobs to supplement their income; those concerns were not a focus of these contract talks.
In a news release, 32BJ District Leader Juan Hernandez called the contract “a victory for all working people. When we make fundamental service jobs better, we show that together we can change lives and lift families out of poverty and into the middle class.”
Matt Ellis, a spokesman for the Association of Building Contractors, issued a release calling the agreement “a fair and reasonable settlement for the employees, the union and cleaning contractors.”
Click here and here for previous coverage of the lead-up to the contract settlement.
Click on or download the above sound file to listen to an interview with New Haven custodians Jason Rodriguezand Sonia Rodriguez and 32 BJ organizer Franklin Soults on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven.”