Northwestern’s contracted janitors on Saturday voted unanimously to authorize a strike but will remain on the job while negotiators attempt to reach an agreement.
With a strike authorized, the janitors’ union, Service Employees International Union, Local 1, will meet this morning with representatives from the three companies that provide janitors to NU: Aramark, Kimco Staffing Services and Millard/Admiral Maintenance.
Local 1 leaders have been working to improve contracted janitors’ wages and benefits, which they say are lower than compensation paid at other Chicago-area universities.
The other universities pay wages between $10 and $13 an hour and offer full family health insurance; NU’s contracted janitors make about $7 an hour and usually do not receive any health benefits, union leaders say.
More than 100 janitors met at the Holiday Inn/Evanston for Saturday morning’s vote, said Dan Schlademan, a union organizer.
Schlademan said they discussed the janitors’ issues and the state of negotiations, and union leaders answered questions about the logistics of a strike.
Many of the contracted janitors who had to work on Saturday sent messages through their co-workers, voicing their support for a strike, Schlademan said.
Talks will continue, however, between the union and the contracting companies.
Representatives from the three companies will meet with union officials and two janitors from each of the companies at 9:30 a.m. today, said Jeff Danielski, a Local 1 organizer.
He said the scheduled meeting was “a good sign and a step in the right direction.”
“That’s exactly what we’ve been looking for. We want one contract with the same wages and working conditions to cover (all the contracted janitors),” Danielski said.
Officials at the three companies could not be reached for comment Sunday.
Though the negotiations will go on, the strike authorization will affect the tone of the meetings, union organizers predicted.
“The process is on a very short leash because there’s still a very wide gap, specifically about wages,” Schlademan said. “The people at the bargaining table have all the right in the world to hold a strike at any moment.”
In a statement Saturday, Local 1 President Tom Balanoff also warned about the pace of negotiations, saying: “The cleaning contractors only have a few more days to resolve this issue.”
Danielski said the union was “not in any way toning down or stopping” any of its activities because of today’s meeting.
Following Saturday’s vote, several union organizers and contracted janitors promoted their campaign by passing out fliers to people outside Ryan Field before NU’s football game against the University of Michigan.
Even though “everybody and their brother was passing out fliers for something,” Danielski estimated that his group was able to hand out between 1,500 and 1,700 fliers.
