Port District Caught in Janitors’ Fight for First Raise in 6 Years

Since 1980, Mateo K. Soane has pushed a broom, cleaning up after the 10 million passengers who annually rush through the terminals and parking lots of Lindbergh Field--where flights come and go 18 hours a day.

Most people, preoccupied with their flights, retrieving luggage or picking up friends and relatives, rarely notice Soane or the 70 other janitors who work there. They only know the sprawling place, although increasingly choked by traffic and bursting with people, is tidy and clean.

What they don’t know is that for the last six years, Soane and his counterparts haven’t had a raise. In 1982, airport janitors were paid $5.39 an hour. Today, they are still paid $5.39 an hour. That’s $860 a month, or, after taxes, about $700 in take-home pay.

Few Benefits

The janitors--men and women, most of them Latino and other minorities--have no paid sick leave, no dental insurance, no seniority, minimal health insurance, and one week of vacation a year.

“Who can make it?” asks Soane, a burly 64-year-old native of a group of South Pacific islands named Tonga who immigrated to the United States nearly 20 years ago. He pays $557 a month rent for a three-bedroom house in Golden Hill he shares with two sons and a daughter-in-law, two of whom work at a gas station. His wife is back home visiting in Tonga.

“You need food to eat, gas for work and (money for) everything . . . I tried to move but it’s too expensive,” he said, complaining of leaky pipes in his home. He held two jobs for a while, but finally gave it up.

Until recently, it looked as if the seventh year would be like the last six, another year without a raise. And though that may yet still happen, indications are it won’t occur without a fight this time.

Pressure on Port District

Though the janitors work for a private Minnesota-based maintenance company--for some the firm is but the latest of several which have held the airport cleaning contract--they are putting pressure on a high profile third-party: The San Diego Unified Port District. The Port District owns Lindbergh Field, and the janitors want the agency to step in and ameliorate the situation.

In doing so, the once-compliant janitors--through their new union--have placed the Board of Port Commissioners in a quandary, pitting commissioners in a philosophical dispute the likes of which rarely flare on the traditionally conservative, no-nonsense commission more noted for deadening unanimity than lively debate.

In interviews and comments made in public meetings, it’s clear that some commissioners want to do something to improve the janitors’ plight, but others do not, claiming, truthfully, that the janitors--despite the years of service at the airport by many--aren’t Port District employees, and that any dabbling will inject the Port District squarely in the middle of labor negotiations better left to the union and the private janitorial company.

That’s on the surface. An undercurrent in the debate--in large part placed there by the union--is the unquestionable fact that the Port District is an immensely rich public agency easily capable of providing raises. There is also the notion of image. These janitors work at perhaps the busiest public facility in the region, not in a faceless downtown high-rise or obscure industrial park.

“I do have a problem with automatically saying right now and forever, ‘Let the labor contractor get his (laborers) the cheapest he can get them and let us hide our eyes,’ ” said Commissioner Louis Wolfsheimer last month at a commission meeting.

‘Visible to Public’

“It’s like when I eat my cantaloupe in the morning, I don’t know who picked it in El Centro. They probably got some Mexican workers up and paid them as little as they possibly could. I never saw them. I don’t know their problems. But all I know is that I got a cantaloupe in front of me,” said Wolfsheimer, a San Diego lawyer. “This is not the way it is at the airport.”

” . . . I think there comes a point you have to recognize these people are more than field laborers. They are very visible to the public and we should be doing something for them to keep them in some way, shape or form up to at least the bottom rung of the ladder of success . . . for people to work for . . . years and never get a raise, that to me is pretty wild,” he said. “What we’ve accomplished is, by washing our hands of the whole airport cleaning situation, (is that) we are perpetuating this situation where the lowest members on the rung of the economic ladder are just taken advantage of because of our government action. Somehow I don’t think that’s fair . . . “

Expressing the opposite view is Commissioner Dan Larsen, owner of his own San Diego construction business. In response to chairman Raymond Burk’s idea that perhaps the Port District, in seeking new bids on the next airport cleaning contract, should rely on prevailing wage guidelines contained in federal government construction contracts, Larsen burst out:

“Let me tell you, Mr. Chairman, that’s a complete sham. It’s a disgrace to this country that it’s allowed to continue. The prevailing wage doesn’t mean prevailing wage at all. Navy contracts I’m associated with pay laborers $22 an hour. If that’s prevailing wage, I’ll eat my hat. The prevailing wage for a laborer today on the open market is somewhere between $5 and $10 an hour.

“So this is what happens when you get into a situation where the government negotiates with labor unions. It depends (on) how much clout the labor unions have over the politicians and that’s why the so-called prevailing wage is so high. And that’s what I’m trying to eliminate on this board, is not to get into that position,” Larsen said. “Let the market place determine what the wages are, not the politicians.”

Until 1965, the Port District directly hired its employees to clean Lindbergh Field. “But the board at that time felt that wasn’t the most efficient way to clean the airport,” Port Director Don Nay said. “Because it is a very high traffic area, and the civil service janitor was not considered to be the most inspired employee, and it requires a lot of supervision, we felt private enterprise could do a better job of keeping the building clean.”

In its contracts, the closest the Port District has ever come to dictating wages is requiring private maintenance companies to pay the prevailing wage for janitors as determined by the federal Department of Labor for San Diego and Imperial counties. In the federal books, the hourly pay of $5.39 has remained unchanged since 1982.

Vote for Union

Through the years, private contractors at Lindbergh Field have come and gone, as has the union representing the workers. But last July, airport janitors--many of whom are heads of households--voted once again for the union, Service Employees International, Local 102. The rejuvenated union, with new leadership and aggressive organizers, has gained attention for its unprecedented efforts at unionizing janitors in downtown office buildings.

One of the first things it did at the airport was challenge the amount of health insurance benefits the private contractor, Calhoun Maintenance Co., was paying the janitors. It sued the contractor. The union also took the matter to the Board of Port Commissioners. The Port District, according to the union, has an obligation to make sure the contractor is fulfilling its contract.

Last month, the Board of Port Commissioners concluded that Calhoun Maintenance failed to pay workers all they had coming in health benefits. To make up the difference, the commissioners approved allocating $15,000, retroactive to last July, to the janitors--the equivalent of about $150 for each full-time janitor, who make up about half of the work force. The money was approved on a 5-2 vote.

Part of the problem, Nay said, is the contract with Calhoun Maintenance has “ambiguities.” Hoping to avoid a similar hassle in the future, commissioners agreed to rebid the $1-million contract so that a new one is in place by July.

Before the rebidding takes place, though, the Port District must draft specifications, the guts of a new contract upon which janitorial companies will base their bids. It is in the wording of those details--more precisely what is said about wages and benefits--that is at the core of the debate now raging among commissioners and between the union and the Port District.

The biggest fear of people like Nay and Commissioner Phil Creaser of Chula Vista is that if they aren’t careful, the Board of Port Commissioners will find its public hearings turned into a labor negotiation session. “This is a very delicate position that we are putting ourselves in,” said Creaser, a real estate investor who founded his own insurance business and whose term on the board is now over. “These people . . . are not our employees. We have a contract with Calhoun Maintenance and these people are in existence because of Calhoun and not because of us.”

Solution Difficult

Even commissioners who are more moderate on the issue, such as Burk, say it will be difficult finding a solution that pleases everyone. “We are in a ticklish situation,” said Burk, a retired admiral who represents Coronado. “Obviously, there’s quite a bit of sympathy coming from (most) board members for the union workers. We’d like to see them treated fairly.” But, he noted, how that is manifested is anyone’s guess at the moment, though the Port District staff will present alternatives later this month.

Eliseo Medina, the new president of Local 102, said the Port District, “like everyone else, would like to get the job done as cheaply as possible. They want a level of efficiency but they don’t want to pay for it.”

“From my perspective,” he said, “the (commissioners) are responsible for the situation at the airport because they dictate through the bidding process. What we want is to have them recognize they have an obligation to these employees.”

What the union has proposed is patterning the specifications after some federal government contracts. Rather than relying on a predetermined wage, the union wants the ability to negotiate a higher salary with the contractor. If the two sides agree on something higher than $5.39 an hour, the agreement would then be presented to commissioners for verification and inclusion in the Port District’s contract.

“We want a procedure that’s meaningful,” Medina said. “The contractor now says he can’t pay more than $5.39 an hour. There is no collective bargaining.”

“We’re not asking them (commissioners) to become involved . . . what we’re saying is let us negotiate the contract, we know how to do that.” The union’s biggest fear is that the Port District--like the City of San Diego and the county--will not address wages and fringe benefits in the specifications, leaving as the only guidepost the federal minimum wage of $3.35 an hour.

Both the City of San Diego and the county hire their own janitors as well as contract out for cleaning. Each has never become involved in what the private contractors pay their employees. But spokesmen for both agencies say it’s not as easy as simply hiring the cheapest company available.

“If they pay a really low wage, it’s reflected in the work . . . and we have to spend increasing amounts of time supervising the contract,” said Deputy City Manager Jack McGrory. It’s for that reason, he said, that if the cost of doing the job is roughly similar, the city prefers to use its own workers, who are unionized and paid between $6.08 and $9.39 an hour.

High Turnover Rate

What sometimes happens with private janitorial contractors, explained McGrory, is that because workers are paid the minimum wage “you get into a situation where high turnover rates show up in indirect cost to you as an employer and reflects on the quality of the job you get.”

Hildo Hernandez, deputy director of the county’s facilities services division, said that while the county uses private contractors to clean some buildings, the record--despite savings on paper--is inconsistent. “In the past,” he said, “we had a tremendous amount of difficulty . . . we had to let go of a lot of contractors.” The problems included high turnover, complaints and, in some cases, thefts, he said. As a result, he said, the county has had to use its own monitors to make sure the job is getting done.

“If you do a cost comparison, it’s more economical to go with an outside vendor . . . but you have to be in control of the management,” said Hernandez, explaining that the county is still evaluating the benefits of outside contractors. “Our bottom line is service.”

The county has about 90 of its own janitors, who are represented by an association and are paid $6.44 to $8.65 an hour.

Unlike the city or the county, the Port District employs only a handful of staff janitors, but they are paid better than their counterparts at the airport. Not only do they earn more, from $7.33 to $8.92 an hour, but they also have better fringe benefits, including paid sick leave.

While the debate over the airport janitors has everything to do with philosophy and nothing to do with the Port District’s ability to pay, the agency’s wealth has found its way into the discussions.

The Port District is one of the richest public agencies in Southern California. Not only does it control much lucrative bayfront property--land burgeoning with restaurants and hotels--but it is financing construction of a convention center, an edifice that when completed and outfitted is expected to cost more than $150 million.

Last fiscal year, the Port District’s net income reached $42 million. Its cash and short-term investments totaled $170 million.

For the union, the Port District’s wealth only magnifies the situation at Lindbergh Field. “They are swimming in money . . . what you’re talking about is exploited laborers at the airport,” said Medina, the union president. “They say they can’t get involved . . . but the contract with (the maintenance company) has one cost-of-living clause, for toilet paper and other paper supplies.

“They have (a cost of living increase) for toilet paper but not for the workers . . . it’s ridiculous.”

As for Mateo Soane, he continues to work the swing shift five days a week, cleaning the two-story West Terminal and sweeping the sidewalks outside the baggage-claim building from 2:30 to 11 p.m.

No one bothers him, he said, because he does his job right.

His command of English, like many other full-timers at the airport, is halting, certainly not on par with the articulate dialogues one hears in the chambers of the Board of Port Commissioners.

“I feel bad,” he said, “no way I can explain it. You need money here.”

But things may be looking up for him. He recently received a letter, he said, inviting him to interview for a new job--as a Port District janitor.