Union contract upholds superior industry standards for more than 300 door attendants, handymen, janitors, and other residential workers

San Francisco, CA - On Thursday, October 8, more than 300 residential service workers announced that they have ratified a new three-year union contract with the owners of more than 50 San Francisco residential buildings. The contract will maintain superior residential industry standards for workers' wages and benefits including affordable family health insurance and a secure pension.

"It is heartening to come to an agreement with residents and building owners that upholds the San Francisco values of respect, dignity and opportunity for all hardworking people," said Andrea Deheldorf, SEIU Local 1877 Vice President.

The contract is an agreement between residential workers' union, SEIU Local 1877 - United Service Workers West, and the "Condominium/Cooperative Employers Council of San Francisco," a group representing the owners of apartment and condominium buildings in the Nob Hill, Russian Hill, and other neighborhoods throughout San Francisco. Residential workers ratified the contract by an over 80 percent majority vote, and the Condominium/Cooperative Employers Council voted to approve the agreement on Wednesday, October 7. The contract is now effective between October 1, 2009 and September 30, 2012.

"For veteran residential workers like myself, this contract is a huge victory in upholding the standards we've built up in our industry over decades," said Emmanuel Eric, a door attendant and member of the Bargaining Committee. "The wage increases, maintenance of our current healthcare plan, and assurance of retirement security will allow our families to remain in the city and weather these difficult economic times."

Under the new contract, the Condominium/Cooperative Employers Council will continue to provide quality, affordable health insurance benefits for all San Francisco residential workers and their families. In negotiations, residential workers fought hard to maintain their current benefits, and were successful in avoiding a switch to a high deductible health plan. The new contract also maintains decent wages and ensures wage increases for the residential workers.

The new contract also maintains residential workers' pension, with employers agreeing to pay an additional surcharge for each employee hour worked under a "Trust Fund Improvement Plan" option to secure the pension fund despite the faltering stock market. Workers covered under the union pension plan are assured of their benefits despite ups and downs in the economy.

While the new contract will improve working conditions for the majority of San Francisco's residential workers, it will not impact workers at a few buildings whose owners sub-contract apartment service jobs to companies that pay low wages and offer diminished benefits. At one such building, 101 Lombard Street, janitors with between three and nineteen years of service were recently fired when their Homeowners Association hired a tiny, unknown contracting company called "Luis Janitorial," which offers poverty wages and no healthcare coverage to janitors. At 1001 California Street, building owners recently sub-contracted doormen to a contractor that pays lower wages and offers no affordable family health care or pension.

"We will continue to fight the unscrupulous building owners who bypassed the negotiation process and are implementing sub-standard working conditions for residential workers," said Vice President Dehlendorf. "This behavior is unacceptable and out-of-line in a city where the majority of residential buildings have agreed to respect workers' top-quality service."

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SEIU Local 1877 is part of SEIU United Service Workers West (USWW), a union of more than 40,000 janitors, security officers, airport service workers, and other property service workers across California. Nationwide, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is the fastest growing labor union in the Americas with more than 2 million members.

For more information visit www.SEIU-USWW.org.

For thousands of Americans, health care reform is literally a life or death decision. To help highlight that point, 30 members of Local 1877 joined 40 others outside the Sacramento headquarters of Anthem Blue Cross, which is owned by WellPoint, for a "die-in." As people lay down on the ground, they helped illustrate the fact that 44,000 Americans are dying each year for lack of affordable insurance.

People strung up police tape around the building, marking it a "crime scene" for the morally corrupt acts that WellPoint perpetrates against its customers, such as denying coverage for "pre-existing conditions" and refusing to cover medically necessary procedures. While some of the protesters sprawled out on the ground, a group of 20 others proceeded inside the building to present a "citizens' arrest warrant" to Angela Braly for WellPoint's "crimes." They were stopped before they could reach her office, but their presence was made known throughout the building.

On June 9, dozens of janitors laid off from Cisco Systems in San Jose, CA ended a 7-day hunger fast protesting the company's corporate greed and unfair treatment. Check out this new video SEIU United Service Workers West created documenting the breaking of the fast:

The janitors at Cisco Systems first began protesting the corporation--which currently has more than $34 billion in cash assets on hand--when contractor ABM Industries Inc. laid off more than 40 percent of its total janitorial workforce in February. The janitors that remain on the job at Cisco are now being forced to shoulder higher workloads.

The important principle these fasting janitors have sacrificed so much to make: a company that has $34 billion in cash assets and paid its CEO $18.8 million last year shouldn't just stand by while $12-an-hour workers are let go by the contractor Cisco hired to work on its campus.

Shouldn't we ask whether it's morally defensible for a top executive to accept tens of millions in pay while he is destroying the lives of his workers?

As janitors and community supporters continue their hunger strike outside of Cisco Systems corporate headquarters in San Jose, Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy has written a thought-provoking column about the corporate strategy of treating layoffs as 'par-for-the-course' events that are the cost of doing business in this downtrodden economy.

Cassidy points to the disparity between the blasé attitude the tone of conversations surrounding layoffs have taken on and the real-life devastation that large-scale layoffs cause for people, families, and communities. (One example of this 'detached' attitude that springs to mind is Bank of America ex-chairman Ken Lewis, whose response when asked about the job cuts BofA delivered to nearly 35,000 of its employees in April showed little care for his employees.)

"I understand that at times, in the interest of survival or reinvention, companies must pare down or realign their work forces. I know that this is one of the worst economies since the Great Depression...

But that doesn't mean we can ignore the way massive job losses, including from profitable companies with extravagantly paid executives, are choking the life out of our economy and our communities. People who don't work don't buy things or keep current on their mortgages. Stores close. Homes go vacant. Neighborhoods and commercial districts shrivel up.

Cassidy also rightly points to the hypocrisy of corporate executives such as Cisco's multimillionaire CEO John Chambers, who appears to be one of many high-powered executives not reported to have considered making cuts to their high-dollar salaries and compensation packages a regular business practice in lean times.

The important principle these fasting janitors are sacrificing so much to make: a company that has $34 billion in cash assets and paid its CEO $18.8 million last year shouldn't just stand by while $12-an-hour workers are let go by the contractor Cisco hired to work on its campus. The question "what choice did we have?" from a chief executive in the face of shattering company layoffs shouldn't be rhetorical, says Cassidy. This question, he says, "should be put to business leaders by the press and politicians. We should all be talking about it. Isn't there another way?"

Justice for Cisco Janitors has estimated that it would cost just a month and half of Cisco CEO Chambers' salary, or a little more than $1 million, to bring back all of the 70+ laid-off janitors of SEIU Local 1877 to work for the rest of this year. Please stand with these janitors--who are currently in Day 6 of their hunger strike--as they demand justice for the janitors at Cisco Systems and stand up to all the corporations who are deaf to the kitchen-table concerns of middle class Americans.

Click here to send a letter to Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers or visit http://seiuaction.org/campaign/justiceatcisco

For two days now, dozens of janitors, members of faith and community supporters have had absolutely nothing to eat, only drinking water as they determinedly camp out outside of Cisco System's corporate headquarters in San Jose. This fasting will go on for at least another five days, with new participants joining the fast each day at 1 p.m., when a religious leader from the Interfaith Council will conduct a ceremony blessing them.

The janitors at Cisco Systems began protesting the corporation--which currently has more than $34 billion in cash assets on hand--when contractor ABM Industries Inc. laid off more than 40 percent of its total janitorial workforce in February. The janitors that remain on the job at Cisco are now being forced to shoulder higher workloads. Shouldn't more work = more pay? Cisco doesn't think so. The only thing these janitors have experienced an increase in since their coworkers were laid off is the threat to their health and safety.

The hopeful outcome of this fast? That Cisco will live up to its claims of "corporate social responsibility" and put the common good ahead of corporate greed by reinstating the laid-off janitors.

Targeting low-wage service workers for layoffs while protecting enormous profits is a sad pattern we've seen emerge more and more in recent months from big corporations. We'll bring you more about the janitors' struggle in the coming days. In the meantime, visit www.justiceatcisco.com and check out photos from Day 1 of the fast here.

Take action to support these fasting janitors by sending a letter to Cisco CEO John Chambers now.

On Thursday, hundreds of workers marched 10 miles in the rain from downtown Los Angeles to the Federal Building to call on Congress to rebuild America by passing the Employee Free Choice Act. All along the route, workers highlighted some of the issues facing working men and women all across the county -- from facing foreclosure to the struggles of workers fighting to earn a living wage and join a union.


Michelle Collins, a UHW member who participated in the event said, "In this hard economy, a union and a union contract are the best protection workers have. No workers, including health caregivers, should face cruelty, abuse, or firing just because we exercise our right to form a union."

SEIU Locals 121RN, 1877 and SOULA joined UHW members participating in the rally. Union members from UFCW, LIUNA, Unite-Here, Teamsters, Longshoremen and Ironworkers were also in attendance. "Taking to the streets of Los Angeles shows that the whole labor movement is committed to winning the Employee Free Choice Act," said Collins. "Our message today on free choice is the same as during the last campaign: 'Yes we can. And yes we will.'"

Watch video footage of this rally:

We need free choice now. Please raise your voice in support of the Employee Free Choice Act and sign SEIU's petition for worker rights.

http://action.seiu.org/page/s/millionforfreech

Read about the Employee Free Choice rally held in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 5 here.