Service Union Objects to Plan to Use City Workers for Stadium Cleanup

Union officials charged Monday that about 80 maintenance workers could lose their jobs March 1, when the city takes over the cleaning of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium and hires a smaller, non-union work force that will have only a handful of employees receiving benefits.

Since the stadium opened in 1969, private janitorial companies have contracted with the city to clean up. The city now contracts with Pedus Building Services, a Los Angeles maintenance firm. The Service Employees International Union, Local 102, has represented stadium workers for 20 years and has negotiated contracts and benefits for them.

Several of the part-time workers who have worked as many as 15 years with the stadium cleanup crew are among those who could be fired March 1, union officials said. On Monday, the workers said city officials had told them that they will have to cast their lots with other applicants if they want their jobs back. Notices mailed to the workers instructed them to apply for their old jobs on Wednesday, but the employees said they were told that jobs would not be guaranteed to them.

This and other charges by the union were contested by Assistant City Manager Jack McGrory. City officials plan to hire “every single one of” the existing employees, provided they pass a routine medical examination, McGrory said.

“Each one of them has been told what our commitment is,” he added.

Earn $8 an Hour

Custodians at the stadium earn $8 an hour, but the city announced that it will pay janitors $6.54 to $7.79 an hour when it begins hiring in a few weeks. McGrory said current workers will be hired “at the top of the salary range,” which is 21 cents an hour less than what they now earn.

Eliseo Medina, Local 102 president, charged that city officials are engaging in a practice that they have used in other departments where “hundreds of employees are in a permanent subclass without benefits.”

Last year, city officials began looking into the possibility of using city workers to clean the stadium, and a city study determined that a savings of about $117,000 could be realized annually if city employees took over the maintenance. According to the study, 16 full-time workers with an undetermined number of part-time employees can be used to do the same work that is now done by Pedus’ 80 part-time workers in the same amount of time.

McGrory said that further review of the study shows that the city could actually save as much as $175,000. However, the city’s savings claims were challenged by Medina.

“We think that McGrory is exaggerating the savings. Our figures show that the city only stands to save about $33,000. . . . They’re being penny-wise and pound foolish. But it’s the callous way that they’re going about this that is so terrible. There are people and families being affected here, but the city doesn’t seem to care. These are the only jobs that these people have, and they don’t earn that much to begin with,” Medina said.

Four stadium workers who met with a reporter on Monday said they earn an average of $6,000 a year. Last year was an exception because Super Bowl events at the stadium provided extra work days that helped three of them earn just under $10,000.

‘Doing an Injustice’

“The city is doing us an injustice . . . . We know that the pay is not very much, but we have benefits that were obtained for us by the union. Many of us have medical and dental insurance and paid vacations. It’s the benefits that are important for us and our families,” said Rodolfo Ibarra, 43, and a 15-year stadium employee.

Humberto Ochoa, 55, and a 10-year employee, said the health plan negotiated by the union allows the workers to be treated by doctors and dentists in Tijuana, where some employees live.

“What’s going to happen to us and our families? . . . . The city must understand that what they are doing is affecting real human beings,” said 10-year employee Jose Porras Rubio, 65.

Under the city’s plan, 16 workers will receive a benefits package that is better than the one workers receive under the Local 102 contract, McGrory said. He acknowledged that this is fewer than the 54 employees who receive health and welfare benefits under the Local 102 contract with Pedus.

But McGrory says that “overall, the 16 employees will be far better off” under the city’s benefits package. Also, the remaining part-time custodial workers will be in a position to move into full-time city jobs later on and “will have better job security with full civil service protection.”

Despite McGrory’s assurances, the stadium workers remained unconvinced.

“The Padres are going to have a good season,” Ochoa said. “This means bigger crowds at the stadium and more trash. I want to see the smaller group of workers clean up this bigger mess in the same amount of time. The people who think that this is possible don’t know anything about how the cleanup is done after baseball games.”