Low-Wage Campus Workers at Georgetown, Miami Win with Student Support

by James Parks, May 3, 2006

On the eve of Cinco de Mayo, the holiday that celebrates the victory of Mexican fighters against Napoleon’s army, the mostly immigrant janitors at Georgetown University and the University of Miami are celebrating their own wins.

Nearly 500 Georgetown janitors began re-signing union authorization cards May 2 in their effort to form a union. Their employer, P&R Enterprises, the company with whom Georgetown contracts to clean campus buildings, agreed to accept the results of a majority sign-up process, the most democratic process for winning union representation. P&R refused to accept cards the janitors signed last year.

In March 2005, Georgetown students, members of Georgetown Solidarity Committee, staged an eight-day hunger strike in support of the workers’ effort to win a living wage. In the wake of the hunger strike, the university promised to pay the janitors $13 per hour, a promise that it so far has reneged on.

Earlier this week, 450 poverty-wage janitors at the University of Miami (UM) also won an agreement that gives them the right to form a union through majority sign-up and raise living standards for their families.

The agreement came after a two-month strike by hundreds of UM service workers and a  a 17-day hunger strike by janitors and students. Nearly 1,000 professors from 200 colleges and universities across the country signed a petition to UM President Donna Shalala, former Clinton administration secretary of Health and Human Services.

The strike officially ended May 3 when all employees returned to work. The agreement covers the janitors working for UNICCO, a UM contractor, at the school’s Coral Gables campus and UM’s Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Under the provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 1696 and S. 842), workers—like those at the University of Miami and Georgetown—would win a voice at work when a majority of the workers sign authorization cards. The bills, which the AFL-CIO and affiliated unions strongly support, have 215 co-sponsors in the House and 42 in the Senate.

Despite support from 257 members of Congress, Republican leaders refuse to bring a bill to the floor that would make the process of choosing a union fairer. Now, employers routinely harass, intimidate and fire workers who seek a union.

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