SEIU and Janitors for Justice (SEIU)
Founding of the SEIU and the creation of Janitors for Justice
One of the first unions to represent janitors, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), was created in 1921 by immigrant janitors (SEIU925.com). Today, in addition to representing janitors in the division titled "Property Services", SEIU is the "fastest growing union in North America" with 1.8 million members representing workers in fields from healthcare to public service (SEIU.org). Janitors for Justice was founded as the activist movement within SEIU in 1986, in response to undercutting schemes enacted between corporations and independent contracting services which provided janitorial services to companies and buildings. According to author Carter Wright:
"Throughout the 1980s, large real estate owners sought to shed costs by contracting cleaning services out to building service contractors, who competed by pushing down wages and underbidding rival contractors. If the union asked building owners for a raise, the owners shrugged off any responsibility and passed the buck on to the contractors that technically employed the workers. When the union went to confront the contractor, it would claim it couldn't afford a raise because the owner paid so little for cleaning services" (Wright 12).
Because of this ruse, wages were nearly cut in half and health benefits were almost entirely removed from janitors in the mid 1980s (Wright). However, Janitors for Justice found success in coercing janitorial contracting companies into sharing the profits which they were earning from their exploitation by creating communities of janitors in an individual urban area.
Activism and Techniques Utilized by Janitors for Justice
Relations to Race, Class and Gender
