Si Se Puede! Justicia!

What a surprise was announced at the Justice For Janitors Rally yesterday.  32 BJ of The Service Employee’s Union and the cleaning contractors that hire the workers had come to a tentative agreement on the new contract. This action gave the unionized cleaners in Hartford and in the suburbs most everything they had asked for. The length of the contract is for four years. This will provide a 50 cent annual hourly pay increase for the next four years and the employers agreed to continue to cover fully full time workers’ family health insurance. Cleaners in the suburbs who have been fighting for years for benefits similar to the urban cleaners also made out better in the new contract gaining personal days, and pension benefits. Part-time workers also benefit from the new contract going from 20 hours per week to 25 and also improved health benefits, including prescription drug benefits, dental, optical and life insurance. This is one of the best contracts that my partner Tim has ever seen in 25 years working for one of the cleaning contractors. Local 537 merged with 32BJ and now has over 100,000 members in major cities around the U.S. Members were ready to call for sympathy strikes in cities around the country as most of the workers work for the same major cleaning contractors. This of course shows us that together there is power, the  Power of the People United. The power of the Union. I can not for the life of me believe that the cleaning contractors or the large corporations have finally understood their responsibility to the workers but instead it was the workers, and their union reps who seized the day and made sure that justice was served. YES WE CAN, and YES WE DID.  AS WE SING:

Solidarity Forever

When the unions inspiration through the workers blood shall run

There can be no greater power anywhere beneath the sun

But what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one

For the Union Makes us strong.