Janitors March at Warner Center in Demonstration for Pay Increase

Despite the rain, about 200 janitors chanting slogans marched Thursday through Warner Center as part of their campaign for better wages.

Marchers want more than the $6.80 they now make, said union organizer David Huerta of the Service Employees International Union, Local 1877.

“[Workers] want livable wages, so they can afford to pay rent and care for families without having to work two or three jobs,” Huerta said. Janitorial service providers, which began providing health care for union families last month, said there isn’t enough money for wage increases after the current contract expires March 31.

Thursday’s march was typical of prior actions by janitors--boisterous, with workers blowing whistles and rattling soda cans filled with rocks as they left Warner Ranch Park and walked down Owensmouth Avenue into Warner Center.

Los Angeles Police Department cars blocked traffic, clearing the path for protesters who chanted in Spanish, “What do we want? Justice. When? Now.”

“The [janitorial service companies] are trying to take away our benefits. They are taking away everything we have achieved, and we’re not going to allow it,” said union delegate Rosa Alvarenga, 45, who lives in Canoga Park and works at Warner Center.

It costs more than $300 a month to provide each worker with health benefits, said Ty Ingram, president of Alliance Maintenance Services in Van Nuys, whose workers are union members.

“It’s going to be a little fight, and I won’t be surprised if you see small companies pull out of the union contract,” said Ingram.

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It doesn’t matter that there are fewer vacancies in commercial buildings, or that economic times are better, Ingram said.

About 70% of Valley commercial buildings are cleaned by unionized members, union officials said. Thursday’s march marked the beginning of more union actions in the Valley; janitors plan to march Feb. 18 along Ventura Boulevard, Huerta said.

The union is negotiating with 18 cleaning service contractors, four of which provide cleaning services in the Warner Center area. The janitors are asking for a $1 hourly wage increase and sick days.

“[This] first year a dollar is going to be hard to swallow,” Ingram said.

So far, the contractors want union members to approve a five-year contract with no wage increases, Huerta said. “That means basically five more years of poverty, and that’s unacceptable,” he said.

Ingram said janitors are asking for too much if they want health benefits and a wage increase the same year.

Larger cleaning service companies--Advance Building Maintenance in Beverly Hills, American Building Maintenance in Commerce, One Source in Los Angeles and Servicon in Culver City--did not return calls.

The workers’ average wages also rose to $6.80 in 1995.