ANNALS OF LABOR PC janitors get a good deal BY BRIAN C. JONES

Fifty janitors at Providence College have succeeded in keeping their jobs and negotiating a new, three-year labor agreement, after the college hired a different outside company to manage the campus’s cleaning chores. For the workers, it’s a happier outcome than sometimes results when big employers subcontract work like housecleaning. Last year, the Providence Public Library laid off five unionized janitors, and the non-union firm that took over the work didn’t rehire them.

The Providence College results came after an energetic campaign by union organizations, which enlisted a cadre of public officials, including Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, to urge that workers and their union be retained. "The amount of community support that was shown for those janitors was remarkable, in a very short period of time," says Lee Erica Palmer, organizer for Local 615 of Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Palmer also credited the janitors themselves, who she said signed a petition asking college officials to guarantee their jobs in switching from its old contractor, UNICCO, to the new winning bidder, Hurley of America. "It was a brave thing for a group of workers to do," Palmer says.

For its part, PC did not "mandate either way" what approach the bidders would take in terms of retaining the workers or negotiating with the union, says Michael Frazier, vice president for finance and business. The college was well aware of the thinking of the outside groups and officials, he says, but that "did not change any of the analysis" the college used in processing the bids.

Frazier did say all of the eight or nine firms bidding for the work knew that a union was in place. And he says it’s common in such contracts for winning bidders to retain workers to ensure a smooth transition. "One thing we did say," Frazier says, "was that we expect to have the employees to be treated justly and fairly."

Palmer, the union official, says that when the Hurley firm won the bid, the company immediately contacted her to begin negotiations for a new labor contract.

The pact was worked out in the week between Christmas and New Year’s — as opposed to the two-to-three months contract talks usually take. One reason, she says: Hurley is among service contractors who have signed a "master contract" with Local 615, setting general conditions like health-care benefits.

Still, there was no guarantee of a happy ending. Despite the new contract, Hurley required each of the janitors — some of whom have worked at the college for 17 years — to reapply for their old jobs, college and union officials say. The process included drug tests and criminal background checks. In November, when the college announced it would seek new cleaning bids, the workers feared a new contractor might hire a different group of employees and would not negotiate a new labor pact.

The union and the workers then gained backing from labor and community groups, including the Jobs with Justice labor organization, which in turn coordinates the work of the community-based Rhode Island Workers’ Rights Board, whose chairman is Providence City Councilman Miguel Luna. Thirty-three city council members and state legislators, college faculty members, and others signed a letter to the PC president, the Reverend Philip A. Smith, urging retention of the workers and their SEIU representation.

Palmer says college officials told advocates they "weren’t willing to tell contractors how to run their business." But she says, "We are pleased that the college put enough money into the bid so that Hurley was able to offer raises." Frazier, the business chief, says the college did not pick the lowest bidder, although Hurley’s was at the lower end of the proposals.

The new labor agreement provides for 3.5 percent raises in each of three years, bringing the rate for full-time janitors from $10.31 an hour last year, to $11.43 in 2007. Individual workers have fully paid health insurance, but must pay extra — about $21 a week — for family medical coverage.