Latina janitors win important contract

Houston janitors won a union contract in November after a month-long strike. This win marks a major victory for workers in the South as well as for all low-wage workers throughout the country.

Strikers expose Houston janitors’ slave wages, Nov. 11. Photo: Gislaine Williams

Represented by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the 5,300 union workers—most of whom are Latinas—electrified this non-union and right-to-work city with their creative actions every single day of the strike.

They marched in many areas, from the downtown business district to the busiest shopping area, from the wealthiest Houston neighborhood to the police station. They picketed and rallied and did sit-ins and civil disobedience, blocking extremely busy intersections. They were stomped by police horses and spent many nights in Houston jails—locations not known for affording political detainees any of their civil rights.

At the victory rally in the convention center in downtown Houston, striker after striker expressed pride that they had won—and that they had won as a mainly Latina union.

Mercedes Herrera, a janitor for ABM, one of the five companies that signed the contract, said the experience changed her life and added, “I really appreciated the support of everyone and how everyone stayed together.” (Houston Chronicle, Nov. 21)

The workers will earn more than double their current salaries, be given more hours to work each day, will have six paid holidays and two weeks paid vacation. They will also have health care by January 2009. Before the contract, the janitors made as little as $20 a day or around $106 a week.

Even the town’s conservative daily paper, the Houston Chronicle, hailed the contract as “momentous.” It editorialized: “The most obvious beneficiaries are the workers who saw their wages raised from some of the lowest in the nation. But in the long term, Houston residents of all backgrounds will also see improvement—in their wallets and in the city’s well-being.” (Nov. 23)

But janitor Ercilia Sandoval had a more accurate analysis: “This is an incredible victory for our families, and for all families. When I go back to work, I will go back proud of what we have accomplished, not just for us and our families, but for all of the workers in this city who work very hard but are paid very little. We showed what can be done, what must be done.” (ThisTuesday.org)

Sandoval, a member of the union’s bargaining committee, has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She said to a union rally, “My daughters may grow up without a mother because I had no health care, no early detection or other treatment. Houston janitors are fighting for access to affordable health care for all working families in Houston so no one else has to go through what my family and I are facing now.” (Houston Justice for Janitors, Oct. 10)

At the Nov. 21 victory celebration, Flora Aguilar, also a member of the SEIU bargaining committee, told the assembled janitors: “Nobody thought that poor Latinas of Houston would be successful, but today we can stand up and carry our heads very high. We all won today.”