By Marc Larocque
Northeastern janitors, without the help of university administrators, but with the support of Northeastern students, were offered better contracts last week.
After more than a month of protests and rallies, members of SEIU Local 615, a union of 16,000 building service workers in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, including Northeastern janitors, reached a tentative agreement Friday night for higher wages, more sick days and increased opportunities for part-time workers to become full-time. Their former contract, which expired that day, did not provide adequate benefits, they said, and when a new contract was initially proposed they rejected it, threatening to strike.
Now, janitors across New England will vote during the week on the proposed agreement. The vote will be tallied Saturday, said Roxanna Rivera, organizer for SEIU Local 615.
“The [Building Maintenance Contractors Assocation] did move significantly in the last hours of the tentative agreement process because we were preparing for a strike,” Rivera said. “We were able to win a new five-year agreement.”
The Northeastern janitors who work the overnight shift are mainly employed by Consolidated Services Corporation (CSC), a private contracting company that is part of the Building Maintenance Contractors Association, a group of about 30 maintenance companies that contracts about 12,000 workers through SEIU Local 615.
Janitors in metro Boston, which includes Northeastern, will now receive a five-year contract that offers a 25 percent increase in pay during the next five years. The new contract also includes raises of 30 cents every six months and four more sick days over five years, with one additional sick day awarded each January. A third of the janitors will go from part-time to full-time, with remaining part-time workers gaining an additional five hours of work each week. Janitors who have worked for more than five years, since the last contract negotiation, will receive a 15 cent differential, Rivera said.
Although negotiations had been underway since June, the two sides were deadlocked about the union’s demand that workers get full-time status and a “living wage.” For the Boston metropolitan area, the starting wage for janitors under SEIU is $12.95 an hour, there is no overnight compensation and there are two sick days offered a year without consideration of seniority.
The companies were originally offering only 15 cents more per hour each year in the new contract and no additional sick days, Rivera said. Northeastern janitors and supporting students also expressed concern for the lack of hazardous material training and safety education here, while schools like Harvard University put as much as $300,000 toward training and safety education. Also, the 110 full-time and 70 part-time janitors said they deal with sub-par equipment, daily harassment and limited safety gear.
Two weeks ago, more than three dozen Northeastern janitors were barred from participating in a rally, planned to take place Aug. 15 on the Snell Library Quad. University administrators told the Progressive Student Alliance (PSA), who organized the rally, that all non-students or individuals not employed directly by the university would be escorted off campus for trespassing. The rally, which was initially approved by Northeastern officials, was intended to elicit more student and community support for the janitors.
“They probably thought a bunch of kids yelling wouldn’t look good to visitors and tourists,” said Stephen Weeks, a middler chemical engineering major.
While the current Northeastern administration has avoided involvement in the renegotiation process, in 2002, janitors went on strike for a month and almost 150 students and faculty joined the protests.
The current Northeastern janitors said their wages and benefits are not enough to live comfortably, forcing many of them to work two or three jobs in total. There has been a series of demonstrations in addition to the rally that was cancelled. They shook noisemakers and shouted into microphones while marching around the campus and also joined other marches that were taking place throughout Boston.
Some students, however, did not think the demonstrations were effective.
“They’re not even getting the message across,” said Adam Jack, a freshman business major, while watching the janitors march on Huntington Avenue. “No one knows what they are saying.”
The Northeastern janitors last approached the administration on Aug. 22, when, joined by PSA members, they marched to 716 Columbus Ave., where President Joseph Aoun’s office is located. Vice President of Public Affairs Robert Gittens accepted a basket of bread and roses on Aoun’s behalf, and is currently working to meet with the janitors and members of PSA to discuss further steps.
