Originally in Inequality.org
Just this year, we’ve seen UPS Teamsters secure a historic $30 billion new contract that abolishes tiers and substantially raises wages. We’ve seen the UAW successfully strike for contracts that boost pay, protect benefits, and crystallize the prospect of a green auto industry.
Now, building cleaners across the country are next up to negotiate equitable deals and notch new victories for a labor movement confronting an uncertain future. On the line? Their ability to keep living and working in their home cities with ease and dignity. All told, contracts covering more than 134,000 SEIU cleaners nationwide are up for renegotiation over the next year with different SEIU locals, over half of whom belong to 32BJ SEIU locals on the east coast.
The negotiation wave is already underway — building solidarity in the process. In October, 2,000 commercial cleaners in Philadelphia won a new contract that raised wages by 18.6 percent over the course of four years, along with inflation-pegged bonuses and retirement benefits. Building cleaners from Massachusetts and Rhode Island to D.C. and Pittsburgh are organizing hard for fair agreements before their current contracts expire. And in New York, negotiations began last week for a new contract covering the 20,000 union cleaners who steward some of the most iconic buildings in the city’s skyline.
Ena Softley — a senior worker at a skyscraper in Manhattan’s Times Square, a proud member of 32BJ SEIU, and a resident of Flatbush, Brooklyn — has been cleaning buildings for 37 years. She loves her work: It’s hard, but she’s of service to people, and she feels secured by decades of union organizing. Inequality.org‘s managing editor, Bella DeVaan, caught up with Softley about her work and what’s at stake. Their conversation has been edited and condensed.