Check out this story from the San Francisco Chronicle (May 29) by Rick DelVecchio.
UC Berkeley may be the finest public university in the nation, but the toilets have to be cleaned the same as anyplace else.
The 300 custodians who do the university's scrubbing pointed up this household reality during their recent picketing of graduation ceremonies. Their message: They work for the top-rated public institution of higher learning but earn a below-average wage.
Picketing by the janitors union frustrated six commencement events -- the speakers, including former presidential candidate Howard Dean, refused to cross the janitors' lines -- and rankled Cal at a time of embarrassment over questionable executive pay deals by top officials in the university system.
Dean said workers can't support their families on what Cal pays its janitors. [cont'd]
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Going Super-NOVA
Here's some information about the situation of the UNICCO janitors at Nova Southeastern University.
There will be a COMMUNITY MEETING with janitors from Nova and community members. Building on the success at the University of Miami, janitors at Nova and community members are meeting to discuss how to improve pay, win affordable health insurance, and create a better life for working families at Nova and Broward County. You are warmly invited to attend.
The situation of the janitors at NOVA is comparable to that of the janitors at UM prior to their strike. Here are some personal stories:There will be a COMMUNITY MEETING with janitors from Nova and community members. Building on the success at the University of Miami, janitors at Nova and community members are meeting to discuss how to improve pay, win affordable health insurance, and create a better life for working families at Nova and Broward County. You are warmly invited to attend.
Monday June 15 at 4:00pm
(Reception at 3:30pm)
St. MauriceCatholic Church
2851 Stirling Road, Dania
Trinidad Espinoza, UNICCO Janitor at Nova Southeastern University
Trinidad, 45, has worked as a janitor for UNICCO at Nova Southeastern University for the past 3 years. She goes to work at 6 p.m. and works until 2:30 a.m., getting paid $7.25 an hour and does not receive health insurance. She does some part-time work on the side to try to make ends meet, but it is still not enough.
Trinidad can’t buy very much. "Everything in my apartment has been a gift from someone because we can’t buy anything. The fridge is empty." She spends less than $200 a month on groceries and buys lentils and other beans to feed her two daughters. "You just can’t justify that," she said.
She frequently cleans the auditoriums at the university. "After some of the luncheons, they leave behind sirloin steaks for us to throw away. We’re throwing out this incredible food knowing we have nothing in the house."
Trinidad’s difficulties don’t end there. She’s packing her bags because she can no longer afford the $600 a month one bedroom apartment where she and her daughters live. She’s very concerned. "Taking my daughters to a less expensive area is going to be dangerous."
Diana Marcela, Trinidad’s 16 year-old daughter suffers from migraines. But Trinidad can’t take her to the doctor because she doesn’t have health insurance or the money to pay the doctors’ bills. "My downstairs neighbor will bring up some pills for the pain, but what Diana needs is to see a doctor so we can get to the root of her problem."
"For us it would be a triumph to win union representation after so much humiliation -- the triumph of being able to go to a doctor, and having food in the fridge, as all families should have."
Nora Bermann, UNICCO Janitor at Nova Southeastern University
"We want to feel supported. The cost of living has increased greatly and our wages are not enough."
Nora, 57, has worked as a janitor for UNICCO at Nova Southeastern University for the past 10 years. She goes to work at 6 p.m. and works until 2:30 a.m., getting paid $7.25 an hour. To make ends meet, she works seven days a week, working not only one but two part-time jobs.
Even while working three jobs, she can’t afford her own place to live. She rents a room in a shared house, with most of her remaining income going towards food, a phone, and car payments. She is able to cobble together enough money to pay a monthly health insurance premium. But it’s a low-cost policy that comes with co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses: "I still have to pay when I go see a doctor. I pay over $180 when I need to get some tests done."
Nora says she is part of the campaign by Nova janitors to form a union with SEIU so that she and her co-workers can win a better life. "Winning a union would be a great triumph. We’d be able to get better salaries so that we could pay for our basic necessities. We’d have health insurance and be protected by the union from the many abuses of the company."
Nora, a widow, has survived a hurricane in which she lost everything. "Not even a chair was left." In a city plagued by hurricanes and with a cost of living that keeps rising, she wants to see the work of janitors like herself and her co-workers rewarded with more than just an occasional small raise. "You just can’t live so many years with the same miniscule salary...It is through our sweat and tears that they [UNICCO] have filled their pockets with money. They should at least pay us better."
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD A BROCHURE HERE ABOUT THE SITUATION OF THE WORKERS AT NOVA CALLED "HELP STOP THE CYCLE OF POVERTY." YOU CAN ALSO VISIT THE WEBSITE DEVOTED TO THE NOVA CAUSE.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Update on Disciplinary Action Against UM Students
We have learnt the following about the disciplinary action being taken by the UM administration against the students who were actively supporting the janitors' strike at the university.
To those who are contesting the charges, we wish them luck.
1) The charges against the students remain “failure to obey a reasonable directive” and “disorderly conduct” –though both have been reduced from Major to Minor (“University”) status.1) is good news since it means, we believe, that expulsion and suspension are off the table as possible punishments. With regard to 2), these students put in a lot more than 25 hours of community service in doing the very things that led to these disciplinary actions. Not only that, but many, if not all of them, have been incredibly involved in a whole host of activities serving the communities they belong to in many ways. They have worked for Greenpeace, for AIDS-activist programs, for anti-poverty groups, for child protection causes and many more. The good thing is, we're sure they are all planning on doing a lot more than 25 hours of community service anyway. As for the 500-word 'reflection'... well, what can one say?
2) One student chose not to contest the charges and has been given the following punishment: two semesters of probation, 25 hours of community service and a 500-word 'reflection' on questions to be posed by Dean Singleton.
3) Other students have contested the charges and are filing motions to have their hearings postponed until the Fall.
To those who are contesting the charges, we wish them luck.
Free Speech at UM
We lift this post from colleague Michael Froomkin's blog, Discourse.net. Froomkin takes issue with the thesis in Jennifer Van Bergen's piece, which we referenced here, that the UM administration's response to the students who were supporting the striking UNICCO janitors at UM was somehow affected by 9/11.
Picketline led me to Findlaw where I find an article by Jennifer van Bergen, "a journalist with a law degree" entitled Speech on Campus After 9/11: Less Free Than It Used To Be?.
The piece's thesis is clearly stated right at the top:
I don't get it.
Please don't misunderstand: I am not here to defend the UM administration's appalling conduct during and after the strike. If students were hauled in on charges and asked to identify each other from photos while being treated in an intimidating manner, that's a violation of our rules (and would be without the intimidating manner, too).
Threatening students with serious consequences for their failure to disperse when ordered is petty and mean, not to mention disproportionate and stupid. Leaving the charges hanging after the strike, instead of resolving them with an amnesty or a wrist slap is unwise (from the administration's viewpoint): so far it has only martyrized them, and will probably radicalize them.
But all this reflexive administrative behavior has nothing to do with 9/11. It has rather more to do with the flawed temperament of our leadership (either the Board of Trustees or President Shalala, or conceivably both) and the poor judgment and limited capacities of certain mid-ranking administrators. In short, your standard story of people in power unable to transcend petty impulses for revenge, and people in a bureaucracy displaying some really lousy judgment during a pressure situation -- then digging in their heels when tempers should have cooled.
But this is the way of the world. People are imperfect. Academic authorities don't like being forced to do stuff by uppity kids, and they never have. And the fact that the kids are right, and that they enlist noble outsiders to say they are right and to force it down the authorities' throats, well, that doesn't help.
But all this has nothing to do with 9/11. UM was like this ten years ago -- indeed, arguably, it may have been substantially worse.
If anything -- and I admit this is reaching a little -- the UM experience with the recent strike proves the reverse of the van Bergen thesis. At one point the administration here tried to float the idea that students protesting were anarchists, or colluding with anarchists, or at least inviting in anarchists, who we were no doubt supposed to believe would in short order turn this pristine tropical campus into some Beirut on the Biscayne.
To the extent anyone paid attention to this silly idea, we just laughed, and it hasn't been heard from since.
Free speech is not in peril on this campus, and we won't let it be. At worst, its ankle is being bitten. Whether that bite turns out to be by a mosquito or a Doberman will turn on what sort of treatment the administration administers to the students it has up on charges. And that remains to be seen.
Picketline led me to Findlaw where I find an article by Jennifer van Bergen, "a journalist with a law degree" entitled Speech on Campus After 9/11: Less Free Than It Used To Be?.
The piece's thesis is clearly stated right at the top:
Exhibit A for this thesis is the UM administration's reaction to the strike. And Ms. van Bergen, described elsewhere as a south Florida resident, appears to be serious.Universities have traditionally been places where debate and the free exchange of ideas have been welcomed. But after 9/11, that may be changing -- as some recent, troubling incidents suggest.
In this column, I'll survey some recent incidents suggesting free speech on campus is in peril, ...
I don't get it.
Please don't misunderstand: I am not here to defend the UM administration's appalling conduct during and after the strike. If students were hauled in on charges and asked to identify each other from photos while being treated in an intimidating manner, that's a violation of our rules (and would be without the intimidating manner, too).
Threatening students with serious consequences for their failure to disperse when ordered is petty and mean, not to mention disproportionate and stupid. Leaving the charges hanging after the strike, instead of resolving them with an amnesty or a wrist slap is unwise (from the administration's viewpoint): so far it has only martyrized them, and will probably radicalize them.
But all this reflexive administrative behavior has nothing to do with 9/11. It has rather more to do with the flawed temperament of our leadership (either the Board of Trustees or President Shalala, or conceivably both) and the poor judgment and limited capacities of certain mid-ranking administrators. In short, your standard story of people in power unable to transcend petty impulses for revenge, and people in a bureaucracy displaying some really lousy judgment during a pressure situation -- then digging in their heels when tempers should have cooled.
But this is the way of the world. People are imperfect. Academic authorities don't like being forced to do stuff by uppity kids, and they never have. And the fact that the kids are right, and that they enlist noble outsiders to say they are right and to force it down the authorities' throats, well, that doesn't help.
But all this has nothing to do with 9/11. UM was like this ten years ago -- indeed, arguably, it may have been substantially worse.
If anything -- and I admit this is reaching a little -- the UM experience with the recent strike proves the reverse of the van Bergen thesis. At one point the administration here tried to float the idea that students protesting were anarchists, or colluding with anarchists, or at least inviting in anarchists, who we were no doubt supposed to believe would in short order turn this pristine tropical campus into some Beirut on the Biscayne.
To the extent anyone paid attention to this silly idea, we just laughed, and it hasn't been heard from since.
Free speech is not in peril on this campus, and we won't let it be. At worst, its ankle is being bitten. Whether that bite turns out to be by a mosquito or a Doberman will turn on what sort of treatment the administration administers to the students it has up on charges. And that remains to be seen.
Report on Florida Minimum Wage by Bruce Nissen
This post, by Mike Hall, is taken from the AFL-CIO blog. It gives details of a report prepared by Bruce Nissen, of Florida International University, that shows that the raise in the Florida minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.15 an hour, voted for by Floridians in 2004, has had no adverse impact on the economy. Bruce Nissen, as many of you will know, was a friend and supporter of the UM janitors during their recent strike.
We’re not in the business of saying “I told you so.” We’ll leave that to the union and community activists who convinced Florida voters in 2004 that raising the state’s minimum wage was the right thing to do.
While business groups and others launched a campaign to defeat the effort to raise the minimum wage, Florida activists repeatedly pointed out the economy will not suffer if low-wage workers get a raise.
A new study on the law’s impact, after voters approved boosting the wage from $5.15 to $6.15 an hour starting in May 2005, shows just how bogus the opponents’ arguments were. The higher wage also is tied to the cost of living, which increased it to $6.40 an hour in January.
“One year later, there appears to be no evidence supporting these claims” says the report, authored by University of Chicago professor H. Luke Shaefer and Florida International University’s (FIA’s) Dr. Bruce Nissen. It was commissioned by the Florida chapter of ACORN and FIA’s Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy.
Activists are mobilizing to raise the wage though legislation or ballot initiatives in more than 20 states—and the study provides another piece of credible evidence that raising the minimum wage is a win-win for communities.
The Florida study follows another recent report that found that small businesses job growth was higher in states with a minimum wage greater than the $5.15 federal level, which hasn’t been increased since 1997.
During the campaign, the Florida Retail Association claimed “jobs will be lost—devastating our strong economy.” Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and Sen. Mel Martinez (R) weighed in against the pay raise. Grover Norquist, the extremist Republican policymaker behind paycheck deception, Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) and other state campaigns aimed at crippling working people, claimed “Florida cannot afford the economic pain,” of raising the minimum wage.
The report, The Florida Minimum Wage After One Year, examined the state’s employment rate, economic performance, low-wage industries and other economic indicators and found:
Click here to read the full report.
At the federal level, House Democrats are moving to bring a minimum wage bill to the floor that Republican leaders repeatedly have blocked. The legislation (H.R. 2429) introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) would raise the rate to $7.25 an hour over two years. Because the bill has been blocked, backers need a “discharge petition,” which requires the signatures of 218 House members.
Click here to urge your representative to sign the petition.
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) has introduced the Senate version (S. 1062), and you can click here to become a citizen co-sponsor.
We’re not in the business of saying “I told you so.” We’ll leave that to the union and community activists who convinced Florida voters in 2004 that raising the state’s minimum wage was the right thing to do.
While business groups and others launched a campaign to defeat the effort to raise the minimum wage, Florida activists repeatedly pointed out the economy will not suffer if low-wage workers get a raise.
A new study on the law’s impact, after voters approved boosting the wage from $5.15 to $6.15 an hour starting in May 2005, shows just how bogus the opponents’ arguments were. The higher wage also is tied to the cost of living, which increased it to $6.40 an hour in January.
“One year later, there appears to be no evidence supporting these claims” says the report, authored by University of Chicago professor H. Luke Shaefer and Florida International University’s (FIA’s) Dr. Bruce Nissen. It was commissioned by the Florida chapter of ACORN and FIA’s Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy.
Activists are mobilizing to raise the wage though legislation or ballot initiatives in more than 20 states—and the study provides another piece of credible evidence that raising the minimum wage is a win-win for communities.
The Florida study follows another recent report that found that small businesses job growth was higher in states with a minimum wage greater than the $5.15 federal level, which hasn’t been increased since 1997.
During the campaign, the Florida Retail Association claimed “jobs will be lost—devastating our strong economy.” Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and Sen. Mel Martinez (R) weighed in against the pay raise. Grover Norquist, the extremist Republican policymaker behind paycheck deception, Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) and other state campaigns aimed at crippling working people, claimed “Florida cannot afford the economic pain,” of raising the minimum wage.
The report, The Florida Minimum Wage After One Year, examined the state’s employment rate, economic performance, low-wage industries and other economic indicators and found:
Far from having a devastated economy, Florida continues to experience record job growth. Instead of businesses leaving the state, the number of private employers in Florida has grown substantially in the past year, and the state is a national leader in the insourcing of jobs from overseas. Far from workers losing their jobs and being worse off, more of them are working and wages across the state have risen.
Click here to read the full report.
At the federal level, House Democrats are moving to bring a minimum wage bill to the floor that Republican leaders repeatedly have blocked. The legislation (H.R. 2429) introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) would raise the rate to $7.25 an hour over two years. Because the bill has been blocked, backers need a “discharge petition,” which requires the signatures of 218 House members.
Click here to urge your representative to sign the petition.
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) has introduced the Senate version (S. 1062), and you can click here to become a citizen co-sponsor.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Naming the Beast or Whistling Past the Graveyard
Check out this article by Michael Hirsch on znet. He mentions the strike at UM.
The democratic left's socialist context went missing. If anyone spots it, please call or instant message. We can even put the appeal on milk cartons.
It was not always thus. Forget about the glory days of pre-war socialism, or the red decade of the thirties or even the sober, literary '50s. In April 1965, Paul Potter, then the president of SDS, said the mission of the new radical movement confronting American power was to "name that system. We must name it, "he said, "describe it, analyze it, understand it and change it. For it is only when that system is changed and brought under control that there can be any hope for stopping the forces that create a war in Vietnam today or a murder in the South tomorrow or all the incalculable, innumerable (and) more subtle atrocities that are worked on people all over -- all the time."
Forty one years after Potter made that speech, given on a perfect spring day in Washington when everything seemed possible, as he addressed 25,000 young antiwar protestors (an unheard of number who effectively launched the antiwar movement nationwide), Potter's mandate is still the goal of democratic socialists: naming, describing, analyzing, understanding, organizing, and changing.
SDS said the enemy was corporate liberalism. Looking back, corporate liberalism in its Great Society garb, in its efforts to ensure social peace and even wage a war on poverty, seems enlightened and even kind, at least compared to the contemporary fang and claw ethos.
Today, the enemy's name is neo-liberalism. That is the political ideology that capitalism dresses in and articulates its policies now. It was in the 1970s that Margaret Thatcher opined that there was no such thing as "society," only grubbing individuals engaged in cementing short-term contracts and where the market, not the family or the community or the class, was the instrument of individual choice. [cont'd]
The democratic left's socialist context went missing. If anyone spots it, please call or instant message. We can even put the appeal on milk cartons.
It was not always thus. Forget about the glory days of pre-war socialism, or the red decade of the thirties or even the sober, literary '50s. In April 1965, Paul Potter, then the president of SDS, said the mission of the new radical movement confronting American power was to "name that system. We must name it, "he said, "describe it, analyze it, understand it and change it. For it is only when that system is changed and brought under control that there can be any hope for stopping the forces that create a war in Vietnam today or a murder in the South tomorrow or all the incalculable, innumerable (and) more subtle atrocities that are worked on people all over -- all the time."
Forty one years after Potter made that speech, given on a perfect spring day in Washington when everything seemed possible, as he addressed 25,000 young antiwar protestors (an unheard of number who effectively launched the antiwar movement nationwide), Potter's mandate is still the goal of democratic socialists: naming, describing, analyzing, understanding, organizing, and changing.
SDS said the enemy was corporate liberalism. Looking back, corporate liberalism in its Great Society garb, in its efforts to ensure social peace and even wage a war on poverty, seems enlightened and even kind, at least compared to the contemporary fang and claw ethos.
Today, the enemy's name is neo-liberalism. That is the political ideology that capitalism dresses in and articulates its policies now. It was in the 1970s that Margaret Thatcher opined that there was no such thing as "society," only grubbing individuals engaged in cementing short-term contracts and where the market, not the family or the community or the class, was the instrument of individual choice. [cont'd]
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Lobbying for the Employee Free Choice Act
Read about efforts being made to help the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) move forward in Congress in this article by Mark Gruenberg in the People's Weekly World. EFCA is a bill that would oblige employers to recognize unions on the basis of card check processes, something that, at present, they may choose to do but do not have to do. Although there is some bi-partisan support for the bill, its passage through the present Congress is not smooth. Let's hope that's one of the many things that will change after this November.
Rank-and-Filers Demand Employee Free Choice Act
WASHINGTON (PAI) — Bob Boyle was fired April 28 from Oesterling’s Sandblasting Co., just outside Butler, Pa. “I wanted a little better and safer place to work,” said the 17-year veteran of the plant. Boyle and two other men, all fired for trying to organize for the Steelworkers union, described the hostility, lies and obstacles they encountered in their organizing drives during a May 8 lobbying effort by the union here. The effort, marshaled by Americans for Democratic Action, was in support of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).
“The most fundamental problem with U.S. labor law is that it’s good on paper, but the employer doesn’t suffer any fine or any penalty” for law-breaking, explained Human Rights Watch labor specialist Carol Pier. Even when workers win a favorable National Labor Relations Board ruling the appeal process takes five years or more. [cont'd]
Rank-and-Filers Demand Employee Free Choice Act
WASHINGTON (PAI) — Bob Boyle was fired April 28 from Oesterling’s Sandblasting Co., just outside Butler, Pa. “I wanted a little better and safer place to work,” said the 17-year veteran of the plant. Boyle and two other men, all fired for trying to organize for the Steelworkers union, described the hostility, lies and obstacles they encountered in their organizing drives during a May 8 lobbying effort by the union here. The effort, marshaled by Americans for Democratic Action, was in support of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).
“The most fundamental problem with U.S. labor law is that it’s good on paper, but the employer doesn’t suffer any fine or any penalty” for law-breaking, explained Human Rights Watch labor specialist Carol Pier. Even when workers win a favorable National Labor Relations Board ruling the appeal process takes five years or more. [cont'd]
Jobs With Justice Workshop on Immigration
Jobs with Justice, South Florida Campus Consortium, will be holding a series of trainings and workshops for activist students interested in learning more about the issues affecting them and their communities. These events will focus on:
Join them and learn about the issues affecting thousands of studentsacross the country! Today, an estimated 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools each year without hope of pursuing a higher education. For more information please contact Carolina Delgado at 305-623-4900 carolina@sfjwj.org
- Immigration - June 8th
- Labor & Globalization - June 16th
- Student Activism - June 27th
- Civil Rights and Police Brutality - July (TBD)
Join them and learn about the issues affecting thousands of studentsacross the country! Today, an estimated 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools each year without hope of pursuing a higher education. For more information please contact Carolina Delgado at 305-623-4900 carolina@sfjwj.org
Ana Menendez at Books and Books.
Ana Menendez was a powerful voice in the Miami Herald speaking out in support of the striking UNICCO janitors at UM. She did this over the virtual silence, and sometimes explicit opposition, of the Herald. Now you can hear her speak and thank her in person.
Every week, Miami Herald columnist Ana Menendez regales us with her exquisite writing and thoughtful commentary. On Wednesday, June 7, 8pm, at Books & Books Coral Gables, she will open a new series, Between the Lines: Discussion with Miami Herald Columnists, which is created to bring you closer to some of your favorite Miami Herald columnists. Menéndez worked as a journalist for six years, first at The Miami Herald, where she covered Little Havana, and later with The Orange County Register in California. A graduate of NYU's creative writing program, she is the author of the collection of stories, In Cuba I Was a German Shepard and the novel, Loving Che. Find out how she keeps her columns fresh and exciting.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Nation’s Billion-Dollar Mall Industry Can Lift Hundreds of Thousands Out of Poverty by Hiring Responsible Contractors, New Worker Committee Says
SEIU Press Release, May 22
LAS VEGAS—A newly formed committee of property service workers from shopping malls around the country appealed to the nation’s mayors today to call on mall owners to hire responsible contractors who pay living wages, provide affordable health insurance and respect workers’ right to form a union. There are nearly 70,000 janitors and security guards in malls, most of whom are not provided with affordable health insurance and are paid wages that keep workers and their families near poverty. Security guards and janitors in malls are currently seeking to improve their lives by forming a union with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
The National Committee for Justice for Mall Workers was formed as part of an effort to lift tens of thousands of contracted-out workers in malls out of poverty, raise industry standards, and improve health and safety training. The committee is made up of mall worker representatives from 10 states. Representatives from the committee will be visiting mayors in various cities across the country over the next few weeks.
Gabrieal Robinson, a janitor at the Shops at Sunset Place in Miami, and Rafael Cruz, a janitor at the Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island, released the letter in Las Vegas at the International Shopping Centers’ spring convention.
Despite working in a mall owned by the largest and one of the richest mall owners in the nation, Simon Property Group (SPG), Gabrieal and a handful of her co-workers are expected to clean more than a half million square feet of mall space each day for less than $64 a day. They are not provided with paid sick days or affordable health insurance.
On the wages she earns cleaning, saving for retirement and quality health care are just a dream. Instead, Gabrieal and tens of thousands of property service workers like her at malls around the country, scramble to pay for medicine, doctor's visits, food, and rent. Despite working hard every day, many live in fear that a medical emergency could leave them and their family homeless or force them to rely on government assistance to care for her family. "I work across the street from the University of Miami. Their struggle to improve their lives inspired me to speak up about the conditions that we face. We work hard but live in fear that we are one check away from homelessness."
Rafeal Cruz, who has affordable family health insurance and a union, agreed: "Our communities need good jobs that provide health insurance. I am lucky enough to have heath insurance. Every family should have what I do."
Industry statistics indicate that malls are trending toward becoming more closely integrated into their surrounding communities by redeveloping into "lifestyle centers," offering residential living spaces, neighborhood services like dry cleaning, and retail shops. However, the use of irresponsible service contractors who pay near poverty wages and do not provide workers with health insurance at these new developments could undermine the relationship that many mall owners are seeking to build with local communities that depend on good jobs.
According to a report by the Institute of Medicine, "having a sizeable uninsured population translates into real economic and noneconomic costs for our country, including the expenses for services uninsured people use and the costs resulting from poorer health because they often forgo needed services."
"Employers face a choice—be a leader and hire contractors who pay decent wages and provide health insurance or face increasing opposition from local community leaders unwilling to tolerate the economic and social impact that poverty level jobs wreak on our communities," said Madeline Janis-Aparicio, secretary-treasurer of The Partnership for Working Families, a national organization devoted to ensuring that working families and communities truly benefit from economic development.
Background:
Close to 95 percent of malls in the United States contract out services like cleaning and security to subcontractors. There are approximately 45,000 janitors and security officers who do not receive health insurance from their mall contractors .
More than 60 percent of retail workers do not receive health insurance from their contractors.
Simon Property Group (SPG) is the largest publicly traded retail real estate company in North America with a total market capitalization of approximately $42 billion. SPG currently owns or is interested in 285 properties in 39 states in addition to Puerto Rico.
Latino workers are hardest hit by the health care crisis and have the highest uninsured rates. Thirty-two percent of Latinos living in the United States are uninsured. Ten million of the 13 million uninsured Latinos are in working families. In 2002, 20 percent of Latino children were uninsured compared with 9 percent of black children and 7 percent of white children. More than one in five citizen children in low-income mixed-status families remained uninsured in 2002—a rate 74 percent higher than that of children with citizen parents.
LAS VEGAS—A newly formed committee of property service workers from shopping malls around the country appealed to the nation’s mayors today to call on mall owners to hire responsible contractors who pay living wages, provide affordable health insurance and respect workers’ right to form a union. There are nearly 70,000 janitors and security guards in malls, most of whom are not provided with affordable health insurance and are paid wages that keep workers and their families near poverty. Security guards and janitors in malls are currently seeking to improve their lives by forming a union with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
The National Committee for Justice for Mall Workers was formed as part of an effort to lift tens of thousands of contracted-out workers in malls out of poverty, raise industry standards, and improve health and safety training. The committee is made up of mall worker representatives from 10 states. Representatives from the committee will be visiting mayors in various cities across the country over the next few weeks.
Gabrieal Robinson, a janitor at the Shops at Sunset Place in Miami, and Rafael Cruz, a janitor at the Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island, released the letter in Las Vegas at the International Shopping Centers’ spring convention.
Despite working in a mall owned by the largest and one of the richest mall owners in the nation, Simon Property Group (SPG), Gabrieal and a handful of her co-workers are expected to clean more than a half million square feet of mall space each day for less than $64 a day. They are not provided with paid sick days or affordable health insurance.
On the wages she earns cleaning, saving for retirement and quality health care are just a dream. Instead, Gabrieal and tens of thousands of property service workers like her at malls around the country, scramble to pay for medicine, doctor's visits, food, and rent. Despite working hard every day, many live in fear that a medical emergency could leave them and their family homeless or force them to rely on government assistance to care for her family. "I work across the street from the University of Miami. Their struggle to improve their lives inspired me to speak up about the conditions that we face. We work hard but live in fear that we are one check away from homelessness."
Rafeal Cruz, who has affordable family health insurance and a union, agreed: "Our communities need good jobs that provide health insurance. I am lucky enough to have heath insurance. Every family should have what I do."
Industry statistics indicate that malls are trending toward becoming more closely integrated into their surrounding communities by redeveloping into "lifestyle centers," offering residential living spaces, neighborhood services like dry cleaning, and retail shops. However, the use of irresponsible service contractors who pay near poverty wages and do not provide workers with health insurance at these new developments could undermine the relationship that many mall owners are seeking to build with local communities that depend on good jobs.
According to a report by the Institute of Medicine, "having a sizeable uninsured population translates into real economic and noneconomic costs for our country, including the expenses for services uninsured people use and the costs resulting from poorer health because they often forgo needed services."
"Employers face a choice—be a leader and hire contractors who pay decent wages and provide health insurance or face increasing opposition from local community leaders unwilling to tolerate the economic and social impact that poverty level jobs wreak on our communities," said Madeline Janis-Aparicio, secretary-treasurer of The Partnership for Working Families, a national organization devoted to ensuring that working families and communities truly benefit from economic development.
Background:
Close to 95 percent of malls in the United States contract out services like cleaning and security to subcontractors. There are approximately 45,000 janitors and security officers who do not receive health insurance from their mall contractors .
More than 60 percent of retail workers do not receive health insurance from their contractors.
Simon Property Group (SPG) is the largest publicly traded retail real estate company in North America with a total market capitalization of approximately $42 billion. SPG currently owns or is interested in 285 properties in 39 states in addition to Puerto Rico.
Latino workers are hardest hit by the health care crisis and have the highest uninsured rates. Thirty-two percent of Latinos living in the United States are uninsured. Ten million of the 13 million uninsured Latinos are in working families. In 2002, 20 percent of Latino children were uninsured compared with 9 percent of black children and 7 percent of white children. More than one in five citizen children in low-income mixed-status families remained uninsured in 2002—a rate 74 percent higher than that of children with citizen parents.
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