Boston janitors could walk

By adamg, Sat, 09/22/2012 - 6:17pm

This video shows members of SEIU 615, which represents roughly 1,000 janitors at Boston buildings, voting to authorize a strike if negotiations with management break down.

Strikes
Work
Boston

Comments

By anon -

Adam, do you know what venue you they are in?

By anon -

I support working families. They should get a fair wage and decent benefits. We live in one of the most expensive cities in the country and they live here too.

“They want us to take their charity, but we deserve more,” Lowell janitor and union negotiator Silvia Clarke told a cheering crowd of janitors and their supporters. “We don’t want millions, but we are not taking pennies.”

[..]

Clarke, the negotiator, said discussions were progressing slowly because the cleaning companies had not offered specific responses to many of the union’s proposals.

By anon -

With unemployment being what it is, do they really thing now is a good time to demand high wages for menial labor?

Worst case scenario they are all out of jobs and replaced with people making half the former salaries.

By John-W -

...we'd still be working weekends, evenings, child labor, no benefits...wait...uhm...I guess that's what we're sort of going back to. nevermind.

Demanding "high wages" for menial labor. What assholes. They should just be happy that they are allowed to live in the land er da free.

By anon -

Well it seems that if you are a unionized government employee, or a union employee of a government subsidized industry, you're set for life with an early retirement. Meanwhile the serfs in the private sector get to work until they die to pay for your early retirement, plush benefits, and guaranteed pension.

Somehow I don't see that being sustainable in the long run.

The drive for corporate profit has been eating into salary and benefits. From 2000-2007 the majority of corporate profit growth came from cuts in wages and benefits, according to a study by JP Morgan.

is like getting marriage advice from my priest. OK, we're in a recession. All the socialist talking points won't change that, or the fact that SEIU is so corrupt that even the Teamsters aren't actively supporting them. Hottest part of the property management biz right now is PM's that aren't affiliated with SEIU. Teamsters have their own, less confrontational template. Watch who gets the contracts. Ever hear the expression "pigs get slaughtered"?