Office Cleaners Ready To Strike

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by Thomas MacMillan | Dec 22, 2011 8:53 am

(12) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Business/Labor/ Economic Development, City Hall

Thomas MacMillan Photo Mayor John DeStefano rallied with workers calling for fair wages to clean downtown buildings—including the mayor’s own City Hall.

“I’m proud to work in a building with [SEIU union local] 32BJ workers,” the mayor said at a demonstration Wednesday afternoon in front of City Hall on Church Street. “Together, there’s nothing we can’t do.”

SEIU’s 32BJ comprises some 2,000 cleaners from New Haven to Hartford. Members of the union work for cleaning contractors sweeping and mopping the Long Wharf Maritime Center, One Century Tower, the Connecticut Financial Center, and City Hall, among other buildings in New Haven.

The union is in the midst of contentious collective bargaining negotiations with an association cleaning contractors. Talks have broken down over the matter of wage increases, according to Matt O’Connor, SEIU 32BJ political director. The contractors’ association wants a wage freeze for the length of the four-year contract, O’Connor said. That’s a non-starter for the union. The association’s spokesman, James Canavan, could not be reached for comment after the rally.

After his comments to the crowd, DeStefano (pictured) said he would be willing to speak with the contractors’ association on behalf of the union, “if it became appropriate” and “if asked and invited to.” He said he’s been willing to take a similar role in the past in labor relations between different unions in town and their managers. For instance, he helped broker a contract between Yale and its unions to end a strike, and he brokered a unoinziation deal at the Omni Hotel.

As the boss at City Hall, can’t DeStefano just make sure City Hall cleaners get paid more? Asked that question, the mayor noted that “they don’t negotiate building by building.”

The rally ended with a chant of “Huelga! Huelga! Huelga!” (“Strike! Strike! Strike”)

The mayor’s appearance at the rally of building cleaners comes less than a month after a November arbitration decision that led to the partial privatization of school custodian jobs, cutting back vacation days, and no pay raises for two years.

Asked if the unions consider the mayor an appropriate champion for workers rallying for wage increases, O’Connor said the past is less important than the present.

It’s important, “regardless of where he came down in the past, that the mayor is on the right side,” O’Connor said.

Union members make an average of only $11, said Juan Hernandez (pictured), the union’s assistant district leader for the state. Many workers are making “not even close to poverty-line wages,” he said.

The contractors’ association could not be reached for comment.

With the current contract set to expire Dec. 31, union members voted Tuesday night to authorize a strike if an agreement on wage raises is not reached. Another negotiation meeting is scheduled for Dec. 28.

A strike would mean more than just overflowing garbage cans and dirty laundry in buildings, O’Connor said. The union is preparing to picket, which could shut down business at affected buildings, O’Connor said. “There will be a disruption.”

About two dozen union members chanted and waved yellow and purple flags on Church Street a short distance from the entrance to City Hall.

Hernandez introduced DeStefano in Spanish as “the best mayor in the whole United States.”

William Thigpen, who’s 74, said he’s cleaned the mail office at City Hall for 10 years. He said he makes $15.17 an hour. “It could be better,” he said.

Thigpen said he has to support his wife who has diabetes and memory loss. He said he’s ready to strike. “It’s going to be messy,” he said.

Steve Fontana, a former North Haven state representative, and Lou Mangini, a staffer for U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, had their comments of encouragement translated into Spanish for the crowd.

Comments

posted by: Noteworthy on December 22, 2011 9:29am

For the past two years DeStefano as bullied, demeaned and denigrated the city’s custodial staff. He is in the process of wiping out a third of their membership and converting the jobs to lower wage, part time and no benefit employees of a third party.

That he would pretend to stand with these employees is so hypocritical. How does this guy play both positions? And more importantly, how does the union buy it?

posted by: timmy on December 22, 2011 9:30am

destefano ... He does not even pay his new contract labors that much that are cleaning his schools. You voted him in you get to keep him.

Anon, This why i do NOT live in new haven and i commute back and fourth in my SUV.

posted by: reality fact on December 22, 2011 9:33am

... Just two months removed from decimating AFSCME local 287 they have the gall to stand side by side. Matt many members of Local 287 will go home to a family without a job!!!and will ultimately loose their homes and yes many support children from the employment they once had. As long as he comes down on the right side (SEIU 32bj) now it is all forgotten he is a changed man. Well Matt I hope you and the Mayor have a great Christmas because I know I won’t why you ask because I know members of AFSCME local 287 will be unemployed it may not happen now at Christmas time wont look good for the Mayor.But rest assured there is a time and date when they will go home for good and that my friend can never be forgotten….

posted by: Curious on December 22, 2011 9:58am

Why can’t we get a union for the nurses and other workers in YNHH? That needs to be attempted again, and the hospital should not be allowed to buy itself out of the process again.

posted by: Peter Simon on December 22, 2011 10:32am

Noteworthy, I don’t believe these laborers receive benefits anywhere close to the beneifits received by local 287. The City had many issues to fix with their custodians, including work rules and benefits. I don’t believe wages was so important as the other issues, as the City was offering wage increases and the union did not make this a top priority. In addition, Local 287 and the City went through an arbitration process to get to the end result. Maybe you can be a little more specific with your blanket assessment that the cutodians were treated unfairly, unless you consider the surprise visit during last year’s NBA playoffs that caught most of them watching the game instead of working as unfair. You complain about taxes but when the City does something to control its costs, you complain in another way. ...

posted by: flaxwell on December 22, 2011 12:44pm

Thank you office cleaners for keeping us civilized.
Without your help, we would be filthier than gorillas in a cage. I salute those who clean up after me on a daily basis.

posted by: Noteworthy on December 22, 2011 12:52pm

Peter Simon:

First, I don’t complain. Second, the work rules, the pay and the benefits which the school custodians enjoyed, were all negotiated by John DeStefano and his administration. They blessed the previous contract and used it to his political advantage all the while knowing it was unsustainable.

Further, when the NHPS couldn’t effectively manage the custodians, they spent $1.5 million on a private contractor to do so which also proved incapable of doing the daily work of management.

Moreover, the city was repeatedly told not to hire certain people; that certain other people would go out on medical leave, repeatedly. They hired them anyway which then cost taxpayers more money.

Bad behavior is never defensible but if the custodians had been managed effectively and efficiently from the beginning, there would not have been an incident where a number of them were watching the game.

That said, if the contract needed amending, then figure out a way to do it without belittling and denigrating our city workforce. That’s just not in DeStefano’s gene pool. He denigrates everybody who doesn’t roll over and play dead.

The most egregious point of this story is what a flip flopper John DeStefano is. He is a man devoid of values or principles. If had them, he would not be castigating one month, and embracing the next. One doesn’t switch hit like that any more than one falls in and out of love with the flick of a light switch. There is something narcissistic about that and it breeds distrust in government and its managers. And it makes people like me say: What a crock of ....

posted by: Ora on December 22, 2011 3:54pm

The union bashing,union busting,union hater is now coming to the side of these union members? Mayor, do you really think people are that stupid? Hopefully the board of aldermen will remember who and what John DeStefano really is! You never cease to amaze me.

posted by: Threefifths on December 22, 2011 7:25pm

How come I don’t hear yu union haters talk about the crooked bankers and hedge funders who have rip the taxpayers off.

posted by: Say What? on December 22, 2011 10:24pm

@Ora What in the world are you talking about? union busting? Union bashing?

The John DeStefano many of us has to come to know and question has never met a union he hasn’t loved, many times to the detriment of taxpayers.

Remember the YNNH cancer center? The Omnipresent Hotel? Him inserting himself into Yale negotiations against the biggest employer in the city?

The guy has always been consistent on support of unions. Fact is just recently when the city and the taxpayers could no longer fund gold plated retirement plans and labor contracts did he change his tune.

You must be a public employee that is on the short end of bargaining with the city. You have had it good at the expense of working families for too long and DeStefano has been the union golden boy the entire time. The first time he disagrees with you the unions turn on him. I for one am glad to see changes to the contracts and savings for taxpayers.

This group of janitors are in the private sector and are a far cry from the overpaid, underworked janitors in the schools. Private sector union workers have always had to fight 10 times harder for far less than what their counterparts in the public sector get at the mere threat of political action against politicians.

Destefano’s position in supporting unions is nothing new. His change of heart on his own unions cost to taxpayers is new, but it comes a little to late for me.

posted by: fony mayor on December 23, 2011 6:14am

mr mayor it is awful funny how you werent marching with your city custodians at any of their rallies against you

posted by: Ora on December 23, 2011 7:25pm

Hey “Say What” you have a short memory. Every other week the mayor had a full fledged press conference bashing all the unions and his employees. He was the only mayor in CT holding press conferences like this while arbitration and negotiations were going on.
I am an employee???? Try a observant resident and taxpayer who has caught completely wise to John DeStefano and his calculating moves on every front with only self interest involved. I hold dear that the unions have set the pace for private sector and for me! and because of unions we have weekends off. I suppose at some point you are going to say the mayor never announced he wants illegals to vote, aren’t you?
Say What, say what?
I suspect if you live in New Haven you were one of the 1,500 votes that squeezed the mayor in for one more term.

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