MINNEAPOLIS — The labor movement has been front and center in recent years, with everyone from actors and autoworkers to grocery store employees and baristas demanding more from their employers, and walking off the job to get it.
SEIU Local 26 reports more than 1,000 of its members have authorized strikes in recent months. Though some have settled contracts with their employers — like the cleaners and safety ambassadors on contract with MPLS Downtown Improvement District — commercial janitors are picketing through Wednesday after a deal wasn't reached in a lengthy bargaining session Friday.
According to the union, most of the janitors are immigrants and people of color working for "subcontracts like ABM, Marsden and Harvard to clean buildings housing some of the richest corporations in the world." They seek to earn around $21 per hour.
"We need to be able to pay our bills," janitor Michael Bartos said. "A loaf of bread for $4.99 and it just hurts to even see that. That's a good chunk of my hourly wage."
Bartos is one of more than 4,000 janitors on a 3-day strike over wages and pensions. They plan to picket outside more than 100 buildings metro-wide, including Ameriprise headquarters and the Minneapolis Public Service Building downtown.
"My youngest is 15," janitor and SEIU Local 26 vice president Eva Lopez said. "He's in high school, and he has a lot of things that he needs. With my salary, it's not enough."
Lopez said they currently make $18.72 per hour, and are asking for $21 per hour.
"We are just trying to go to $21, and bosses are saying, 'No,'" she said.
The janitorial strike kicked off what SEIU Local 26 calls a Week of Action. Leaders say nearly 1,000 workers from the same union, but different industries, "came together in October to ask 'What Could We Win Together?' and agreed to align around four issues: dignified work, stable housing, a livable planet and good schools."
They also agreed to set March as a deadline to reach agreements with their various employers.
Tuesday, the union's nursing home workers are planning a 1-day strike outside a dozen facilities to call for a $25 minimum wage, better benefits and increased staffing levels.
"Six months ago, not just our members in janitorial but also in security, in retail big box store cleaning, in events work and many other unions, including teachers and municipal workers and ATU bus drivers — all of us together including community members said, 'We're going to set a deadline of March for fair contracts,'" said SEIU Local 26 president Greg Nammacher.
Macalester College professor and political science chair Lesley Lavery says many unions have gained participants since the pandemic, and says many sectors are supporting each other's negotiation goals these days.
In one week, St. Paul teachers may go on strike through their own union if a deal isn't reached with St. Paul Public Schools.
"Their contract was up in July, and they definitely could have said, 'We're not going to work without a contract," Lavery said. "School doesn't start until we resolve this, and that actually is the law in some places, that you won't start a contract until the contract is resolved. That's not how it works here, and so it really is up to the educators to decide on strike… but when we're looking at public sector employees, it's the taxpayers that are going to have to foot the bill, and so the ask might look a little bit different, but if we organize across these sectors, we're saying, 'No, we're all workers though, and we all want to share in the benefits of a booming economy.'"
The janitors and nursing home workers plan to gather on the state capitol steps for a joint rally at 1:45 p.m. Tuesday.
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