Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

33° Evanston, IL
Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Janitors address students’ concerns

Three days before Northwestern’s contracted janitors plan to vote whether to strike, two janitors answered students’ questions Wednesday night in Fisk Hall.

The janitors and a Service Employees International Union, Local 1, organizer talked to the 15-person crowd about the janitors’ fight for higher wages and improved benefits, and discussed the strike vote.

The union is negotiating contracts with three companies that provide janitors to NU, and it wants university administrators to press the companies to sign contracts similar to those in place at other Chicago-area universities.

The NU contracting companies — Aramark, Kimco Staffing Services and Millard/Admiral Maintenance — pay their janitors about $7 an hour and usually do not offer health benefits.

Local 1 leaders, however, say other universities pay their contracted janitors about $10 to $13 an hour and offer them full family health insurance.

Asked how students could support the janitors’ campaign, Millard janitor Jesus Camacho said: “The important thing is to make your opinion known to the people who are in charge.”

Camacho, who works in Bobb and McCulloch halls, also thanked the students for participating in Tuesday’s rally on campus.

Elliot Gage, a program assistant in the mechanical engineering department, called the contracted janitors’ situation “upsetting” and said NU is responsible for the janitors “in any kind of ethical or moral sense.”

“They work in your buildings, they clean up every day and they take care of the place,” he said. “This is not like a set of office buildings. This is a university with ideals.

“Work is work and should be honored. And the people who do the work should be honored.”

Local 1 organizer Jeff Danielski, who has led the union’s activities on campus, said NU administrators should be more concerned about their contracted janitors.

“We recognize that these workers aren’t employed by the university, but it’s obvious who holds the purse strings here,” Danielski said.

Danielski said the janitors’ strike vote would take place at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Holiday Inn/Evanston, 1501 Sherman Ave., and he said everyone he has spoken to is in favor of striking.

If the janitors went on strike — and organizers previously have said they might wait to strike as a “gesture of goodwill” — Danielski said the university would have trouble running smoothly.

“I’m predicting big problems if these folks actually have to go on strike,” he said.

Rosalba Gutierrez, a former Millard janitor who worked in Sargent Hall, talked to the crowd about recently being fired.

Danielski said the union was fighting to overturn her Oct. 24 dismissal, though he said the process of regaining a job for only one worker could take years.

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Janitors address students’ concerns