Excellent audio report re: Houston Janitors Strike:

…there’s another simple way the Chases and Exxons of the world are connected to the janitors.

“Every employee including their CEO presumably needs to use the bathroom. And when they go in to the bathroom, it has to be clean,” says Dube. “This is a very basic necessity that is filled: They can’t work in an office overrun with trash.”

And thanks to janitors like Hernan Trujillo, they don’t have to. He started cleaning offices soon after graduating from high school, to help pay for his mom’s medical bills when she got sick. He says he can’t help but notice the photos on the desks he cleans.

“When I work in the floors, I always look in the pictures and I’m always imagining ‘Wow, there are so many happy faces!’” he says. The vacation pictures, the baby pictures, he loves looking at them. But there’s one kind of photo that gets to him. “When the kid is graduating from college,” he says. Then he apologizes, because he is crying. “That was one of my parents’ dreams,” he says.

Trujillo composes himself and explains that’s why janitors are striking in Houston. If they got paid even a little more, he says, enough to make ends meet and maybe save a bit at the end of the month, it could help families send their kids to college, just like the children in those pictures on the desks he cleans.

HOUSTON This is important: People are fighting to be able to support their families, please support them! 6PM TONIGHT The Williams Tower - 2800 Post Oak Boulevard :]

houstoniso: (TOMORROW) 6PM WED. AUG. 1ST 2012 March for Janitors-Williams Tower (Transco Tower) in the Galleria by the Waterwall. 2800 Post Oak near Westheimer  For over three weeks the janitors who clean some of Houston’s largest buildings have been on strike for decent wages and dignity at their jobs. Most make less than $10,000 a year—not enough to support a family, and often not enough to make rent or buy decent food.  The janitors are asking for a raise to $10 an hour over a few years, yet cleaning companies like ISS and ABM refuse to agree to these terms. Join the janitors, their union SEIU, Rice Progressives and other community allies to rally and march for economic justice! HOUSTON Please attend & support fair wages for janitors and all Houston workers, this is the last big action before the janitors return to the negotiating table at the end of the week: unity in action is vital.

houstoniso:

(TOMORROW) 6PM WED. AUG. 1ST 2012 March for Janitors-Williams Tower (Transco Tower) in the Galleria by the Waterwall. 2800 Post Oak near Westheimer 

For over three weeks the janitors who clean some of Houston’s largest buildings have been on strike for decent wages and dignity at their jobs. Most make less than $10,000 a year—not enough to support a family, and often not enough to make rent or buy decent food. 

The janitors are asking for a raise to $10 an hour over a few years, yet cleaning companies like ISS and ABM refuse to agree to these terms.

Join the janitors, their union SEIU, Rice Progressives and other community allies to rally and march for economic justice!

HOUSTON Please attend & support fair wages for janitors and all Houston workers, this is the last big action before the janitors return to the negotiating table at the end of the week: unity in action is vital.

hell yes :)

Houston Janitors’ Strike to Spread Nationwide

Janitors who have been striking against unfair labor practices in Houston, Texas, say they are taking their struggle nationwide with picket lines in eight cities across the country. Janitorial workers in Los Angeles and Denver are expected to show solidarity by refusing to cross the picket lines against cleaning contractors. The strike in Houston is now in its second week after workers making $8.35 an hour say they faced harassment and intimidation when they rejected an offer that would have raised their pay by just 50 cents an hour over five years.

“What’s happening in Houston is a microcosm of what’s happening to our whole country”  July 17, 2012 Today, the Houston janitors’ strike, now in its second week, will spread to eight cities across the country. (source) :) :)

“What’s happening in Houston is a microcosm of what’s happening to our whole country” 

July 17, 2012

Today, the Houston janitors’ strike, now in its second week, will spread to eight cities across the country. (source)

:) :)

Demonstration, July 6th 2012

Background: HOUSTON JANITORS are carrying out a series of rolling strikes in their fight for a living wage.

After contract negotiations broke down in late May, 3,000 workers, members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1, voted unanimously June 5 to authorize a strike.

The average wage for a janitor in Houston is $8.35 an hour, much less than the average wage for janitors in poorer cities such as Cleveland and Detroit, where their counterparts earn more than $10 an hour.

This disparity exists even though Houston’s commercial real estate market is the strongest in the nation. Janitors clean the buildings belonging to some of the world’s most profitable companies, such as JPMorgan Chase and Shell, but they can’t afford to get by on what they’re paid.

The struggle broke into the open May 31 when 11 janitors at Pritchard Industries went on strike. Pritchard fired the workers, and the companies broke off negotiations and began threatening other workers with termination. Since then, the janitors have targeted certain employers for action—including a one-day strike at Greenway Plaza the evening of June 5. That same day, janitors marched through the city’s business district.

Strikers have been holding daily rallies downtown to draw attention not only to their struggle, but to advocate for all minimum-wage earners. At a June 14 rally, a mounted Houston police office intentionally knocked over a striking janitor with his horse, and then arrested another woman for jaywalking when she helped the striker off the ground.

HOUSTON and friends: SUPPORT THE JANITORS (http://www.seiu1.org/)