The Miami Herald (Florida), March 22, 2006, Wednesday

Miami Herald

Posted on Wed, Mar. 22, 2006
LABOR
Nova enters janitor pay controversy

The UM janitors' dispute spreads as Unicco employees who clean Nova Southeastern University say they deserve a raise just like UM workers received last week.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14154448.htm

BY NIALA BOODHOO
nboodhoo@MiamiHerald.com

The University of Miami may not have intended that setting a new wage policy for its contract workers, including striking Unicco Service Co. janitors, would spark debate at other workplaces about what those janitors should be paid.
But as soon as the decision was announced last week, calls from janitors all over South Florida started coming into the Service Employees International Union's Local 11 office, union organizers say.
Now workers at Nova Southeastern University, who are also employed by the contractor Unicco, say they also deserve a raise. They plan to take their case to the Fort Lauderdale-based school's administration this week.
NEUTRAL PARTY
UM has maintained it was a neutral party in the dispute between the workers and Unicco over wages, benefits and the right to form a union. Workers began a partial strike three weeks ago, and it is ongoing. But President Donna Shalala said Thursday the school was neutral only about the union's organizing efforts, and she announced pay increases of at least 25 percent for contract workers including food service, janitorial and landscaping employees. Workers who started at minimum wage, $6.40 an hour, will now make at least $8, and in some cases, as much as $9.30. Affordable healthcare will also be available, she said.
''Even before the university changed its position, workers were starting to realize this could happen,'' said SEIU spokesman Renee Asher.
Plantation United Methodist's Rev. Tim Smiley said the fact UM became such a proactive player in the labor dispute was very important.
''I certainly hope the administration at Nova Southeastern would choose to be proactive in the same way,'' said Smiley. Nova workers have been meeting at his church to discuss what to do, he said. ''What I want to do is support the workers in having a voice,'' he added.
Unicco employs 260 workers at Nova. The company's other contracts in South Florida are at Dadeland Mall and Shops at Sunset Place, spokesman Doug Bailey said, as well as Miami International Airport. MIA workers are represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Bailey said that wages are determined by individual contracts with Unicco's clients.
''We're not going to raise our wages willy-nilly unless other contractors also do so,'' he said. ``If our clients want to amend the contract, that's a different story.''
Florida International University does not use Unicco, but has three other contractors who employ about 133 janitors at the university, according to spokesman Jose Parra, who said he believed those workers did not have health insurance. FIU also has 15 janitors who are considered state employees.
CAMPAIGNING
Asher said that the union organizing staff have fanned out to Nova and FIU over the past few weeks, in the beginning stages of an SEIU Justice for Janitors campaign.
The union's signature Justice for Janitors campaigns have brought thousands of cleaning workers into the labor movement through wide-scale organizing efforts. Late last year in Houston, the union was able to bring in about 5,000 workers from several companies all at once.
''Do you organize overnight? No,'' Asher said. ``How does this get done? Probably something like Houston.''
Cornell University professor Richard Hurd said this follows the pattern unions take when organizing on college campuses: generate publicity and put pressure on major institutions, in hopes that others will soon follow.
But it's one thing to be successful at UM and another to translate that to Nova and to private companies, he said.
Major universities, especially one headed by Shalala, former secretary of Health and Human Services, are more likely to be sensitive to public pressure, he said.
''They've picked the university with leadership sensitive to these values,'' said Hurd, an industrial relations and labor professor. ``The question is, can that be translated into Nova Southeastern? That would be interesting to see.''