Chicago, IL – In the final two weeks of April, suburban Chicago janitors made history, setting an example for low-wage “illegal” workers everywhere.

On April 28, ten days after the start of their strike, members of Service Employees International Union, Local 1, ratified a new contract that will bring important improvements in wages, benefits and respect for about 4,000 workers. Most of the strikers were women, and all of them were immigrants from Latin America, Poland and the former Yugoslavia.

The janitors' victory shows that low-wage workers who speak little or no English can beat the bosses with sacrifice, hard work, and an aggressive fight that challenges companies in a public campaign for justice.

For years, downtown Chicago janitors have made more than twice as much money and benefits as their suburban co-workers. This difference in wages and benefits between downtown and the suburbs was the work of a corrupt and lazy union president who, for many years, refused to organize non-union workers in the suburbs. Union companies began to pay lower and lower wages in order to compete with the growing non-union companies, and the union did nothing to protect its members against this process.

In 1996, the union leadership was removed from office by the International union, and a suburbs-wide “Justice for Janitors” campaign began to develop a core of militant and committed workers to prepare for a long-term struggle to bridge the gap between downtown and the suburbs.

The three years leading up to the 2000 contract fight were filled with leadership trainings, rallies and demonstrations, and arrests of workers for blocking streets, occupying non-union buildings, and passing out information on private property. All of these activities brought the situation of the uninsured, underpaid janitors to public attention. In addition, the fight for family health insurance and decent wages was shown to the media and community groups as an example of the wider social crisis in health care and pay for the working poor in the United States.

The contract victory was the result of unity and militancy. As the old contract expiration date came and went, the cleaning companies' proposal for the suburban contract remained the same: no family health insurance, and only a $.90 pay raise over four years. The companies did not believe that janitors would really go on strike, even though the Los Angeles janitors were striking at that very moment on the other side of the country. They said that the workers were too disorganized and afraid of problems with immigration agents to put up any fight at all.

Then, on April 18, janitors in suburban office buildings began a strike that grew in all directions over the two weeks that followed. Marches were organized in the wealthy Chicago suburbs, and thousands of janitors blocked traffic for hours. One hundred janitors went on a hunger strike for 48 hours, and a large group of janitors' children visited the largest building owner in Chicago to ask him if his children had health insurance. Janitors were arrested for blocking scab vans from entering their buildings. One janitor had her foot run over by a scab van.

In the final days of the strike, suburban janitors brought the fight downtown, putting up a massive picket line, which downtown workers refused to cross, in front of one of Chicago's largest and most expensive buildings. Then, during the morning rush hour of April 28, fifty-one janitors and Local 1 staff were arrested after having blocked one of the busiest intersections in the Chicago suburbs for over two hours, while 300 supporters cheered them on. That evening, the janitors' strike became the janitors' victory: the companies gave up, and offered a new three-year contract guaranteeing the janitors full family health insurance and $1.35 in raises.

The janitors' fight was not easy. The raises and benefits in the new contract are much less than what the hardworking janitors truly deserve for their backbreaking work. However, the strike was a victory because so many people said it couldn't happen. The bosses, reporters, and even some people in the union believed that these immigrant workers would never win a strike against the rich and powerful cleaning companies. They said that workers with “no skills” were too easy to replace, and too scared to stand together. They were wrong. The janitors struck, the buildings stayed dirty, and workers everywhere saw that a successful fight does not depend on the skills, language, race or sex of working people, it depends on sacrifice, radical tactics, and solidarity.

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Minneapolis, MN – On Jan. 13, hundreds of janitors, the majority Latino and Somali immigrants, held a spirited meeting at the Minneapolis Labor Center and voted nearly unanimously to authorize a strike. The multinational crowd chanted, “Yes we can do it!” in Spanish (“Sí se puede!”) and in Somali (“Haa wakarna!”). When the vote was taken to authorize a strike, members held up signs reading “Yes! Sí! Haa!” (‘yes’ in English, Spanish and Somali).

The workers are members of SEIU Local 26, a union that represents 4200 janitors who work for 18 different cleaning contractors, including Marsden, ABM and MSI. They clean office buildings in downtown Minneapolis and Saint Paul, including offices for major corporations and buildings such as Target, Wells Fargo, IDS Center, US Bank and Lawson Commons. The janitors’ pay is low and their health care coverage is so expensive that few of the janitors can afford it. Of 2200 workers who are eligible for family health care coverage, only 14 workers actually take the family coverage plan.

The employer is only offering workers a 20-cent pay increase and is refusing to improve the workers’ health care coverage. According to the union, when wages are adjusted for inflation, full-time janitors earned less in 2006 than they did in 1976. Part-time janitors’ wages have declined by 22% during that time. The employer is trying to move toward more part-time workers, who receive fewer benefits. The union opposes this.

The workers’ contract expired on Dec. 31. Negotiations broke off in late December when the employer presented their ‘final offer’ to the union’s negotiating committee.

With the strike authorization vote, the workers can now strike if the union’s 10-member negotiating committee – which includes three Somalis, one Ethiopian and five Latinos – decides it’s necessary. The union has appealed numerous unfair labor practices for intimidation of workers. If the union does strike, it would be a strike against the unfair labor practices, which means that the striking workers could not be permanently replaced.

SEIU Local 26 members have never authorized a strike before. This strike vote follows on the momentum of recent janitors’ strikes and victories in other states. After the strike vote, the negotiating committee will return to the negotiating table to try to get a better contract. The union is also planning other pressure tactics to try to force the employers to budge.

If that doesn’t work they are preparing for a strike. After the Jan. 13 strike authorization meeting, a group of about 40 people met to form a solidarity committee to mobilize union and community support for the janitors in case of a strike. AFSCME Local 3800 president Phyllis Walker presented SEIU Local 26 with their first check from another union for their strike fund, and pledged to raise more support from the labor movement when a strike begins. The solidarity committee is planning various support activities.

If the janitors in SEIU Local 26 do strike, it would be a significant battle for the labor movement in the Twin Cities. Since 2000 there have been a series of big strikes here involving thousands of workers, some of which have been very sharp battles. Hotel workers struck in 2000, state workers and nurses struck in 2001, hospital workers and university clerical workers struck in 2003, metro bus drivers struck in 2004 and Northwest mechanics struck in 2005-2006.

The janitors in SEIU 26 are among the lowest paid workers in the Twin Cities working class. They are by and large oppressed nationalities and recent immigrants – ‘invisible’ workers who live on the edge of survival with everything to lose. Their willingness to fight is an inspiration to the working class as a whole.

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