To help support his family, he has worked for the past 17 years as a union janitor, earning wages in the neighborhood of $10 to $15 per hour.

On Saturday Ullman and other members of SEIU Local 26, which represents about 4,200 janitors employed by 85 percent of commercial cleaning subcontractors in the metro area, likely will participate in a strike-authorization vote, deciding together if their employers have shown them the respect they deserve.

According to Local 26 President Javier Morillo, both the union’s bargaining committee and its core of 100 activist members “recommended unanimously that we recommend to the members a strike option. We’ll be undergoing intense discussion with our members as to how to proceed.”

Twin Cities janitors have been working without a contract since the new year began. Negotiations between Local 26 and the Minneapolis-St. Paul Service Contractors Association broke down Dec. 29, and disagreement over access to health care was the primary reason why.

“The employers made further negotiations contingent upon us dropping our proposal for family health care,” Morillo said, adding that members of the Local 26 negotiating team “are and have always been open to bargaining, but we have to bargain with everything on the table.”

Sharing the wealth
Under the expired contract, employers paid $260 per month of the janitors’ health-insurance premiums, but only if the employees enrolled in selected coverage plans – some of which cost as much as $1,800 per month for families. Most janitors, like Ullman, could not afford to enroll.

“Right now covering my family would (cost) $500 per month out of my check,” said Ullman, who has health coverage through his wife’s employer.

To increase access to health insurance, Local 26 proposed the new contract give janitors the option of enrolling in a national health-care trust maintained by the SEIU. The proposal calls for employers to increase their monthly contribution to $300 for individuals (enough to fully cover premiums) and about $360 for families (roughly 80 percent of premiums). The proposal also includes partial coverage for part-time employees.

In response, the Service Contractors Association claimed the proposal would increase its health-care costs by 600 percent, a figure Morillo called highly distorted.

“Is our proposal going to cost more?” Morillo asked. “Yes. Is it going to be 600 percent? No.”

Janitors deserve the increased coverage, Morillo argued, because the market for corporate real estate is enjoying a revival.

Since 2001, Morillo said, property-tax burdens have shifted from commercial to private owners. The result has been millions of dollars in corporate savings.

“We just think it’s right that they should give back to the community,” Morillo said.

Protecting full-time work
Health care is not the only issue that bogged down bargaining between the Service Contractors Association and Local 26, however.

The two sides also have disagreed over the amount of part-time workers subcontractors are allowed to employ. Under the expired contract, 80 percent of janitors working in buildings of 250,000 square feet or larger have to be full-time workers.

Local 26 initially proposed reducing the threshold to 100,000 square feet, but Morillo said the union has since scaled back its proposal, calling for an additional 150 full-time janitors in the area’s largest buildings.

Although they recently softened their demands, the subcontractors initially made, in Morillo’s words, a “draconian” proposal to “completely part-time the market.”

That ultimately left a bitter taste in the mouths of janitors like Ullman, who said he will vote to authorize a strike. “We are ready and willing to discuss proposals to fix health care or any other proposals that are on the table at this time,” Ullman said.

“We want to do our jobs well and provide for our families, but their lack of respect for us, as in the union members – it seems they’re more concerned about their bottom line than the people who work for them.”

Michael Moore edits The Union Advocate, the official newspaper of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly. Used by permission. E-mail The Advocate at: advocate@stpaulunions.org