Jesse Jackson Leads Striking Janitors’ Protest

Striking janitors again took their fight for a $1-an-hour pay raise to a center of Los Angeles wealth Thursday by marching along Avenue of the Stars in Century City.

There, in the shadow of high-rent skyscrapers, the Rev. Jesse Jackson led more than 2,000 strikers in a call to narrow the gap between the rich and poor. Jackson told the crowd that their strike is important to all Americans.

The mostly Latino immigrant janitors in Los Angeles, Jackson said, face the same challenges as coal miners in Appalachia or sweatshop garment workers and others elsewhere, all of whom are struggling to raise families on low-wage jobs.

“We need to de-racialize the debate. Most poor people are white and are not on welfare,” Jackson said as he led the procession of workers. The protest marking the fourth day of the strike by 8,500 Los Angeles County janitors was videotaped and transmitted to union members in a dozen cities.

Three strikers were arrested during the mostly orderly protest.

Jackson comforted the handcuffed strikers and urged the crowd to remain calm. “I was just trying to control the crowd!” cried Lety Salcedo, one of those who was ordered to the ground, handcuffed and driven away.

LAPD spokesman Jason Lee said two of the three who were arrested swung at police officers, and another was booked on a felony charge of resisting arrest.

At a protest earlier Thursday morning, 21 union strikers were arrested on charges of unlawful assembly after they allegedly blocked the Wilshire Boulevard offramp of the San Diego Freeway, causing a rush-hour traffic mess.

Jackson, once a pro-labor Democratic presidential aspirant, rallied the strikers in front of an office tower occupied by three of Los Angeles’ roughly 15 billionaires. One of the billionaires is the building’s owner, businessman and Democratic Party booster Eli Broad. Also working in the tower are two Democratic Party stalwarts--former Secretary of State Warren Christopher and former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, a onetime community organizer.

The janitors are paid $6.80 to $7.90 per hour--less than what it typically costs to park for an hour in a Century City garage. They are seeking a $1-per-hour pay increase each year for three years.

Negotiations between the Service Employees International Union and the cleaning companies employing the janitors remain deadlocked.

The final offer from the cleaning firms is a 50-cent hourly raise for janitors in downtown Los Angeles with 40-cent increases in the ensuing years. Janitors in the suburbs, however, would receive no raise this year, getting only the 40-cent raises in subsequent years. More than half of the janitors would fall into the second category.

The janitorial firms contend that raising wages beyond that would force them to raise their fees to clients, who would simply hire cheaper, nonunion workers.

Jackson drew cheers from the crowd as he propped 3-year-old Alexa Perez, the daughter of a Century City janitor, on his shoulders and carried a “Closing the Gap” sign. When the marchers passed the Century Plaza Hotel, maids and uniformed hotel workers cheered from balconies, waving towels and dusters. A Department of Water and Power road crew stopped work to stand respectfully as the janitors passed. Even a police officer controlling the crowd briefly chanted si, se puede, bobbing his head rhythmically as he waved the strikers on.

In front of each skyscraper, dozens of office workers stayed out to see the strikers; most watched silently, but several waved and shouted encouragement.

Glenda Foster, an administrative assistant in a Century Park East office building, was one of those cheering. Foster said she came down when she heard the strikers from her 18th-floor office. “They have families to support and they’re working for nothing,” she said.

A postal worker standing next to Foster said she also heard the strike from her building and decided to show her support. “Everyone should make a decent wage. if they’re only making $6 that’s not enough and I know they work hard through the night,” said the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared it might upset her employer.