Striking Houston janitors take cause on road

About a week after Houston janitors walked off the job to protest their average $5.30 hourly pay, the janitors have taken their show on the road, hoping to stir up their brethren in Chicago, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Washington. Organizers call it a "national escalation plan," and Cornell University labor studies professor Richard Hurd said the move is meant to send a message to janitorial companies elsewhere: "It's a way of sending a message to contractors that if they don't resolve the problem in Houston, it will affect them in other cities where they have bargaining relationships," Hurd said.

According to the Service Employees International Union, 1,700 local janitors are on strike, but union officials wouldn't say how many buildings in the other cities the traveling janitors are targeting or how long the picket lines might last (the protesters were expected to begin picketing in Chicago last night). But L.A. janitor and SEIU member Jose Ibarra told reporters he supports the effort: "Houston janitors do the same work as we do," he said. "They need us now, and we'll be there for them. We'll fight for as long as it takes because what happens in Houston affects us all."

Local janitors are seeking a payraise to $8.50 an hour with health-care benefits; in Chicago and L.A., janitors are paid more than twice Houston's $5.30 average. So far there's been little word from the five companies being targeted here, all of which didn't comment to the Chronicle or couldn't be reached.

In Houston, some of the janitors aimed squarely at local business brass by chanting and beating drums outside the Four Seasons Hotel as Greater Houston Partnership members arrived for a meeting. Mayor Bill White avoided the scene by leaving the hotel through a side door — tricky! — and though he said the city stays neutral in labor disputes, taxpayers would benefit from workers having health insurance. "I do hope that we find a way to get more health benefits at least to full-time employees," White told the Chronicle.