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H-Town Rock
Rock Talk, Vol. IX
Remember the striking Houston janitors who protested in other cities and blocked the Westheimer/Post Oak intersection? They've been busy this week, too: Yesterday they rolled buckets and trash bins through downtown during rush hour and returned to Uptown — and today they stormed the Houston Club, disrupted a speech and gathered outside HPD headquarters.
Wednesday morning, some of the janitors held a rally outside the Houston Club, where the Greater Houston Partnership and business leaders were meeting; at lunch, two janitors posing as lunch guests disrupted a speech by Shell Oil Co. President John Hofmeister. "What are you doing about the janitors who clean your buildings for $5.15 an hour?" Peter Hanrahan, Service Employees International Union Local 3 of Cleveland president, shouted at the audience. "You spend more money on lunch than they earn all year." Hanrahan and the other man, Joseph McLaughlin of the local SEIU branch, were removed from the room.
Later in the day, about 500 janitors gathered outside HPD headquarters downtown to protest the arrest of two janitors; the crowd chanted "Up with the protest" and "Arriba, revolution." And, as the Chronicle notes, they were careful to throw away their snack wrappers and empty water bottles — possibly because some of the janitors may be in trouble for dumping garbage in some downtown buildings earlier this week.
SEIU represents 5,300 janitors locally, but it's not clear how many are striking to get a payraise and benefits. Janitors in Houston earn an average of $5.30 an hour, less than half what janitors in some other cities make; the striking janitors want a raise to $8.50 an hour.
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Normally I would be behind these Janitors 100%,but I am changing my mind quickly. Their ads are misleading,they are disrupting others,they are claiming they are attacked,and so on. They also claim,and parade Women through their ads that "cannot live on $20.00 a DAY..false,..90% of these Women only work part-time so $20.00 is for 4 hours or less of work.Work a full day and they pay would be $40.00 or higher and they would get benefits as full-time employee's.Most of these workers do not stay on a job long enough to merit wage increase's and many,if not most,have a Spouse with a full-time job with insurance and benefits covering them. These jobs were never meant to be a career or full-time.For what they do,minimum wage is fair.Most cannot do anything else due to not speaking English so they should be happy for these jobs..which some will lose if higher pay is paid and others not usually interested in this kind of work will start seeking employment or jobs will be cut to offset higher cost by the Custodial firms.
Chanting "Arriba revolution" isn't really going to help either with the current immigration climate.
If they keep it up,I will side with the Custodial firms and Building owners quickly.
Here is a perfect example of the effects of illegal immigrants....Similar to other industries, the large number of illegals and the resulting surplus of unskilled labor is resulting in suppression of wages for everyone else!
If S.E.I.U. really cares about their members, they need to put pressure on our government to crack down on this uncontrolled flow of illegal immigrants coming into the United States. Once that happens, wages will naturally increase and striking will no longer be necessary.
So Karma is clearly a xenophobe who failed econ 101 and Webelder is just anti-union. Never trust anyone who says: "Normally I'd support you 100%, but . . ."
The Janitors' cause is just and they'll win just like janitors in LA, Boston, New York, Miami, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, etc.
Sorry fellas you're on the wrong side in this one.