Janitors Take Protest to Beverly Hills Shops

Los Angeles janitors striking for a $1-an-hour raise dramatized their plight Wednesday by marching on Beverly Hills.

Five busloads of union protesters arrived at noon in the city’s shopping district for a rally marking the third day of a countywide strike. About 400 janitors and union supporters filed past Rodeo Drive boutiques including Bulgari, Cartier and Christian Dior, where some things cost more than the janitors’ $16,432 annual pay.

“We’re showing the contrast in wealth. One of our themes is closing the gap between the rich and poor,” said Blanca Gallegos, spokeswoman for Service Employees International Union, Local 1877, which represents 8,500 janitors in Los Angeles County.

The union also staged protests in Woodland Hills, Glendale, Century City and Westwood, beginning at midday and proceeding through the night.

The strikers got an important boost Wednesday when the Los Angeles Building Trades Council announced its members would honor the picket lines. That could disrupt maintenance and construction work at picketed sites.

Trash and United Parcel Service pickups were already interrupted at several downtown sites when Teamsters drivers refused to cross picket lines, which the Teamsters had sanctioned Monday.

In Beverly Hills, traffic backed up as police diverted a stream of luxury cars from the procession of strikers, some pushing their children in strollers.

Tourists, shoppers and office workers gaped at the scene of contrasting classes.

“This is incredible, simply unprecedented,” said Gregg Donovan. Dressed in a black silk top hat, red fox-hunting frock and white gloves, Donovan is the city’s official ambassador to 2 Rodeo, a complex of retail shops. “One moment all you see on this street are Rolls-Royces and Range Rovers and then this.”

It may have been exactly what the union wanted, but Dick Davis, chief negotiator for the cleaning companies that employ the janitors, called the protest “street theater.”

Negotiations have deadlocked between the union and cleaning companies. Davis said further wage increases could drive cleaning costs to the point where building owners hire cheaper, nonunion janitors.

Dick Dotts, president of Diversified Maintenance Services, which employs about 800 union janitors in Los Angeles County, said nonunion companies now charge 1 to 2 cents per square foot less for cleaning than union firms in the suburbs, and 3 1/2 to 4 cents less downtown.

The cost difference is small enough that a building owner can justify paying the higher price of a union firm “to have labor peace. It’s not significantly out of line,” Dotts said. That could change if the gap continues to widen, he said.

Union companies like his would benefit from an overall increase in the minimum wage, Dotts said, which would force nonunion competitors to raise their wages.

In Beverly Hills, marchers were tailed by a detail of police officers, including a car filled with officers in black fatigues and helmets. As officers blocked intersections, some drivers honked angrily while others flashed victory signs at the strikers.

“I feel bad for them,” said Dominique Salerno, an employee at a Rodeo Drive antiques store. “It really breaks my heart to see children marching too. It also makes me nervous when I see those tactical alert guys in helmets.”

Marchers sat down for several minutes at the intersections of Santa Monica Boulevard and Camden Drive and Wilshire Boulevard and Camden. Just as police officers began to wonder what to do next, the marchers stood back up and continued on.

For one protester, Umberto Belasco, it was the first visit to Beverly Hills. “For me, this is great. There’s a lot of emotion and we’re feeling support. We really appreciate everybody’s patience.”

The union is demanding a $1-an-hour annual raise over the next three years, while employers have offered a 50-cent raise the first year followed by 40-cent raises in the next two years for downtown Los Angeles and Century City janitors.

Under that offer, janitors in the suburbs would not get raises this year, but would get 40-cent-an-hour raises each year for the following two years. Davis said that is because the suburban janitors got a 40-cent raise in January, along with health and welfare benefits raises equivalent to $2 per hour.

That January increase, however, stemmed from a contract negotiated five years ago, and those janitors remain the lowest paid.

Union janitors earn $6.80 to $7.90 per hour, and won full family health benefits last year.

The Beverly Hills protest coincided with marches in the San Fernando Valley. Nearly 300 union members marched around corporate office buildings at the Warner Center in Woodland Hills, chanting “We are on strike! The rich people will have to clean!” In Glendale, several hundred protested.

“We need to have a better life for us and our families. That’s our motivation,” said union member Angelina Lopez, 40. The Reseda mother of four said she earns $6.90 an hour cleaning two floors of a Warner Center building, and supplements her income by cleaning private homes during the day.

Times staff writers Peter Y. Hong and Nancy Cleeland, and Times Community News correspondent Claudia Peschiutta contributed to this story.