Why The Houston Janitor Strike Was Historic

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.texasobserver.org/authors/christomlinson/item/18633-why-the-houston-janitor-strike-was-historic

by Cindy Casares

Published on: Thursday, August 09, 2012



The janitor strike in Houston—which concluded last night with an agreement between janitors and cleaning companies—was historic and rare for many reasons. Texas is a right-to-work state. That means it’s illegal to require a person to join a union to keep or get a job, making the organization of a protest of this magnitude, which lasted more than four weeks, difficult. The right-to-work law also makes it illegal to fire someone for joining a union, but don’t be fooled, the law was adopted because of a long history of anti-union sentiment in this state. Reasons for anti-union leanings are as amorphous as a child’s fear of the dark, mostly driven by the conservative view that unions spawn unwanted social and political agents. But Texas’ anti-union sentiment also has its roots in the very concrete strategy of attracting outside industries to take advantage of cheap labor—a tactic that has worked well in this border state, with Mexico providing us a steady stream of exploitable employees. New York-based companies like ABM, Pritchard and JP Morgan Chase are all contractors of the Houston janitors that, until yesterday, refused to increase the paltry $9,000 a year average wage for janitors.

What little union labor was organized in Texas took a hit following the 1960s when the state grew more Hispanic and more female. Union organizers failed to adapt their recruitment tactics to the changing demographics. The growing number of high-tech jobs also decreased union membership in the state. Across the country, 11.8 percent of wage and salary workers were members of a union in 2011; but in Texas, union members comprised only 5.4 percent of the work force. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, Texas had about one-fourth as many union members as New York in 2011, despite having 2.3 million more wage and salary employees.

But with the advent of the immigration reform and Occupy movements, Texas’ traditionally lowest paid workers may be realizing their situation doesn’t have to remain the way it is. There is a support system if they seek it. Last week, janitors and human rights activists in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York City, Portland, San Diego, San Ramon, Seattle, St. Louis, Toronto, and Washington, D.C., protested in solidarity with those in Houston. Texas Observer reporter Emily DePrang described the scene from Houston on August 2, where members of the janitors’ union had gathered in front of the city’s swankiest mall, the Galleria, to demonstrate:

The crowd was largely middle-aged and Hispanic with lined faces, more women than men, some with children in tow. They were people with something to lose.

FULL story at link.

[enough]

1. Thank you. Glad to see the past tense in that headline.

An interesting and inspiring development.

[limpyhobbler]

2. Really interesting.

Thanks for all the great posts.