O.C. Janitors Ready to Vote on Their First Union Contract

In an unprecedented union vote in Orange County, hundreds of janitors will be casting ballots today on a contract proposal that would for the first time provide them uniform raises and paid time off for vacations, holidays and sick days.

But the proposed wages and benefits, negotiated speedily after the aggressive Justice for Janitors campaign last year in Los Angeles, fall short of what their peers in L.A. County gained. For example, janitors in Orange County won’t receive employer-paid health benefits until Jan. 1, 2003.

Still, union officials and labor experts say the Orange County agreement makes significant strides as a first contract, especially in a place regarded as a bastion of anti-unionism and where the vast majority of janitors make minimum wage. The contract would cover nearly 3,000 janitors who work for five employers--a sizable beachhead for organized labor in a low-unionized area with a vastly expanding service industry.

“Basically, this contract brings these workers up from a substandard job to the bare minimum of what most Americans would consider a standard job,” said Judy Ancel, director of the Institute for Labor Studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. “I mean, when you’re starting with part-time work, no days off, no holidays, no benefits, no nothing, there’s only one way to go. What less could you get?”

Officials of the Service Employees International Union, which negotiated the contract, are expecting workers to ratify the proposal. “This agreement is exceptional,” said Mike Garcia, president of SEIU Local 1877, the Los Angeles-based local that has led the janitors’ campaign statewide. “It’s the very best first contract I’ve ever seen.”

Details of the contract, which will be presented to workers today, show that the typical hourly pay of janitors would jump from the state’s new minimum wage of $6.25 this year to $7.45 by May 2002. That would leave them making 85 cents less than their counterparts in outlying areas of Los Angeles County at the time contracts expire. Those in central L.A. make even more.

Workers in Orange County would get six paid holidays a year, one week’s vacation pay after a year on the job and a sick day per year. Most janitorial jobs are currently part time, but the contract calls for phasing all workers into full-time positions and prohibiting cleaning contractors from subcontracting out work.

Orange County’s labor contract shares the same expiration date, May 1, 2003, as agreements covering janitors in Los Angeles, San Jose, Oakland and San Diego--a potentially significant element as it gives SEIU members more collective power to achieve parity during the next round of negotiations.

“The actual terms of the contract are less impressive than the fact that a first contract was reached at all, much less so rapidly,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at UC Berkeley. “This is a significant victory for the SEIU. They’ve managed to set some important precedents that are sure to pay off in the long run.”

The tentative agreement was reached last week between the SEIU and five companies that provide roughly 70% of the janitors for Orange County office buildings--United Building Services, ABM Janitorial Services, One Source, Avalon Building Maintenance and Advantage Building Services.

Dick Davis, who represented the employers in the contract talks, declined to comment but said he expected membership approval. Workers will be voting at SEIU’s offices in Santa Ana, and results are expected to be released by the end of the day.

SEIU officials, mindful of the disparity between the Orange County and Los Angeles contracts, emphasized that the latest contract for Los Angeles janitors is the product of more than a decade of organizing, picketing and demonstrating, including a three-week strike last spring that drew national attention and helped to invigorate the labor movement.

With no janitorial union base in Orange County, the SEIU’s 12-member bargaining committee struck a deal with employers relatively quietly and after just two months.

Some workers familiar with details of the contract expressed disappointment, wondering whether the outcome would have been different had they launched a more public, aggressive campaign, as their Los Angeles counterparts did.

“I think we could have gotten more if we had gone on strike,” said Josefina Bastida, 33, who works the graveyard shift cleaning the Bank of America corporate building in Brea. “I think we should have gone on strike just to get our health benefits faster.” Still, she plans to vote for the agreement.

Under the proposal, janitors would receive health benefits by Jan. 1, 2003. And then, the employer-paid benefits would cover only the workers, not their families.

Ancel said the $1.20-an-hour raise over 16 months was “pretty impressive” but noted it was still “nowhere close to a decent living wage in O.C.”

Other janitors agreed, saying the proposed contract stands for more than much-needed benefits for poor workers left out of the economic boom. Although largely boilerplate items, the agreement establishes grievance procedures, seniority rules and a greater measure of job security--no small things in an industry dominated by Latino immigrants who have long complained quietly about lack of overtime pay and indiscriminate job losses.

“I feel this contract makes it so the contractors cannot control us like they used to,” said Claudia Sanchez, a mother of two. “We won more respect.”

Times staff writer Hector Becerra contributed to this report.