What I Do
Deborah Cannada, Librarian - West Side Elementary School, Charleston, WV.
Deborah Cannada, Librarian - West Side Elementary School, Charleston, WV.
Thank you to Joe McCartin and to Jennifer Luff for the remarkable work you’ve done – and for inviting me to share a few of my thoughts -- looking back on the Justice for Janitors campaign.
Justice for Janitors was actually born in Pittsburgh.
At SEIU we had decided that we needed to launch an effort to strengthen our representation of janitors and other building service employees, and we had begun to do some thinking about it.
Some of you know that SEIU had started as a union of janitors and other building operators like elevator operators – it was called the Building Service Employees Union.
SEIU’s Local 1 was a janitors’ union in Chicago. All of the original local unions were janitors’ unions – including my own local union in New York City – 32B-J – which started as separate locals for men and women – they were organized separately – and the women were paid less. We actually filed and won an Equal Pay case and merged the two local unions.
So the national union had started as a janitors’ union, but in the 1960s, the focus had turned to organizing public sector workers --- and in the 1970s we organized health care workers in large numbers.
Soon the janitors were outnumbered, and the union dropped “Building” from its name. We became the Service Employees International Union.
In the mid-1980’s in New York we had maintained union density in the city … and built a powerhouse local union – we were still fairly strong in Chicago too -- but most of the original local janitor unions in other cities had fallen into disrepair – and the building contractors were taking advantage of it.
So we knew we needed to rebuild the janitors’ base – we couldn’t hold onto anything if we let it continue to disintegrate.
But in 1985 -- before anything could get started, the janitors in Pittsburgh were confronted with terrible contract demands – the contractors and the local building owners were going for broke. The local union was weak, and the building industry was taking advantage of it.
But the members weren’t about to give in. Some of them were former steelworkers who had already lost manufacturing jobs. They went out on a wildcat strike that lasted through a bitterly cold winter. Several workers died out in the cold.
The strike turned into a community cause – families joined the striking janitors out in the cold --- local labor priests joined the janitors. Pretty soon the entire community was on the side of the janitors – and against the big property owners.
The national union took up the cause – we targeted an aggressive campaign against
Mellon Bank, the most influential property owner -- which in Pittsburgh was like calling out the city fathers – and it brought into question the city’s values.
And we used the leverage we still had in New York and Chicago with the contractors.
The workers themselves adopted the words “Justice for Janitors” – the words showed up on homemade signs. After a long, aggressive battle, the janitors settled for a decent contract.
And that spark in Pittsburgh was the launching pad that accelerated the organizing effort to refurbish the union.
The campaign went on to Los Angeles – where the janitors were mostly immigrant Latino workers.
It went on to cities where janitors had been organized but had become weak – and to cities like D.C., which had never really been organized.
D.C. was one of the hardest cities – the building owners were determined to stop it, and the workers were scared. It is a tremendous credit to many of the people here today that it succeeded.
The theme of “Justice for Janitors” carried forward.
And the lessons of Pittsburgh carried forward too.
7 lessons come to mind:
1. Let the workers lead.
2. Define the struggle around basic values – around dignity and justice. In D.C., we published “A Tale of Two Cities” to show our allies and the people in the power structure, what was happening in the D.C. they didn’t know – what was happening to the “invisible workers.”
3. Analyze who has power, and make that the centerpiece of your strategy.
4. Use the strength you have to build the strength you need – in Pittsburgh, we used the leverage we had in New York. In the labor movement today, we have pockets of real power. We have to use every bit of leverage we have.
5. Build the support of the entire community – we had students, we had faith leaders, we had broad community support, to build the movement we need.
6. Be aggressive – In Los Angeles and D.C., we were militant, and we were constantly in motion challenging power – the 14th Street Bridge event has become famous but it wasn’t the only one. Staying in motion creates opportunities.
7. And finally, seize every opportunity. You never know where the sparks are going to come from. The moments of opportunity may be accidental. Pittsburgh was an accident. But when you stay in motion, you’ll create opportunities -- and when you have a good strategy, good community support, workers in motion, and a story defined around values -- you can transform the opportunities into wins.
