Posted on 10/25/2005 4:34:18 PM PDT by SJackson
We have all heard about sweatshops that pay poverty wages and subject workers to inhumane conditions. We worry that the clothing from our favorite store has been sewn by teenagers locked in factories in China or that the Sulawesi coffee at our local roaster has been picked by workers earning pennies a day. But we really don't need to look so far to see this pattern play out. It happens right here in Madison - one need look no farther than the commercial cleaning industry.
It used to be that janitors worked directly for the companies or owners where they cleaned. But there has been a dramatic shift as more and more service jobs have been contracted out. This process has led to a race to the bottom.
According to a July article in the New York Times, "The industry has undergone a metamorphosis in the past two decades, creating a marriage of convenience in which building owners have increasingly hired outside contractors to cut their labor costs. The cleaning contractors frequently hire immigrants, often without proper papers and at low wages, trying to squeeze out profits as they submit rock-bottom bids to win business."
Market forces drive down wages and create high turnover. Building owners bid down contracts so that commercial cleaners cannot possibly provide decent wages and benefits. If workers unionize and demand improvements, contractors must raise their rates and potentially lose contracts to lower paying competition. It's a recipe for dead-end, poverty wage jobs.
It doesn't have to be this way. In many cities, where workers have unionized and communities have supported them, these jobs provide living wages, benefits and an opportunity for workers to fully participate in the community.
It is up to us as a community to raise expectations and standards. We must demand that area businesses, building owners and managers take responsibility for the working conditions for people working in their buildings, whether they are direct employees or not.
Companies are quick to point out that they have no legal obligation to these workers. That may be, but they do have a moral obligation. All major faith traditions speak of our obligation to practice and pursue economic justice. We at the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice of South Central Wisconsin (ICWJ) believe that sweatshops thrive on ignorance and indifference. By shining a light on what goes on in the commercial cleaning industry and speaking out, we can begin to bring about a change.
Clean Power is the largest commercial cleaning contractor in Madison. Clean Power has contracts for about 44 percent of Madison's commercial office space. This includes one of Madison's largest employers, American Family Insurance.
Clean Power workers enter the buildings on American Family's vast east side campus each evening after most employees have gone home. They mop and buff the floors, vacuum the rugs, empty the waste baskets, clean the bathrooms - the essential tasks that keep the workplace pleasant and tidy.
But they earn poverty wages, receive few if any benefits and have little opportunity for full-time work. The janitor jobs at American Family place a burden on our community by straining our already overstressed social service safety net. American Family can afford to do better.
We are asking American Family Insurance CEO Harvey Pierce to look at more than just the bottom line. We want Madison to be the kind of community that honors work and that supports workers trying to support their families.
Madison and American Family can do better. Join the ICWJ for a vigil at American Family Insurance at 4:30 p.m. Thursday. For more information call 608-255-0376.
This guest column was submitted by four clergy members on the board of ICWJ: Rev. Kelly Crocker, First Unitarian Society; Rev. Calvin Harfst, Parkside Presbyterian Church; Rev. Liz Fabiola Villagarcia, First Hispanic United Methodist Church; and Rev. Pat Size, Grace Episcopal Church.
What happens when you're unskilled, and as an American (I'm presuming these people are legal) have to compete with those "willing" to do the jobs Americans like you won't do.
My guess the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice would disagree with me.
political list?
Yo, Interfaith Justice for Whatever Whatever. Who cleans the bathrooms at your offices?
Where is it written that every menial job must pay enough to support a family of four and constitute a career?
So we fill our Country with illegals for cheap labor then complain and try to eliminate the cheap labor?
I want to ask if this is a joke - but I'm afraid someone would tell me what I'm afraid to find out.
Fact is that if janitors want a "living wage", they need to get better educated so they can make better career choices.
A janitorial job in a factory is a dream job. I have a friend who works as a janitor in a small machine shop and he makes about 12 bucks an hour. It's not spectacular but it could be a heck of a lot worse.
If they aren't earning a living wage, then why aren't they all dead? (W. F. Buckley)
Gosh, if instead of encouraging people to skills that are in demands that they can earn more legitimately we just give them money won't that discourage them from bettering themselves?
Didn't you know that was in the Bill of Rights?..../sarcasm
It's one thing to compete fairly and legally in the open market, quite another to cheat with ILLEGAL labor.
For your comments...
The interesting part of this experience was that my father was very wealthy. But because I didn't attend his alma matar, Lehigh University, I was not worthy of a college degree.
So I started a stereo sales company, bought a used BMW R-50, and that really pissed him off. Then I bought a 2002 sedan. That REALLY pissed him off.
Some folks understand the struggles in a free market, hard work, no government or parental subsidies. Others, even here, do not understand innovation, hard work, creativity and innovation. I still have scars from flying sparks and steel slag. But I never whined, pissed and moaned. More people need to "suck it up," and remember how this country was founded.
The Microwave-Instant-Gratification-Mentality makes me puke.
/rant
I haven't had a laugh this good in ages. Very funny, and typical Buckley, right on point.
My father-in-law was a janitor for the UMichigan most of his life - and he was a white guy - as we like to say in the hood. He provided for 4 kids, owned a home, wife didn't work until he retired; mostly to get away from him. They weren't rich or educated past high school, but they did ok.
These days, maybe folks wouldn't be as happy to have any job, even a janitor's job, as my father-in-law was. They want to complain about the money they get, but boy, they sure aren't willing to put in the time to learn a new skill or get the education that would command a bigger pay check. Sorry folks, some jobs just aren't worth a lot of money.
To quote the great Thomas Sowell, "Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important."
That would certainly apply here.
Excellent rant. I agree with you 100%. I had the same type of youth; on my own at 17, joined the military, invested in real estate, became a self-made Woman and never looked back. To this day, my Dad's favorite way to tease me is to say the reason he loves me so much is that I left the nest running and never came back, LOL! (Unlike my sibling.)
"More people need to 'suck it up,' and remember how this country was founded."
Unfortunately, kids aren't taught this today in our liberal public schools. They're indoctrinated that Mother Government is all they need in this world. *Rolleyes*
If they are worth more, they should be able to go out and get better wages.
If they can't do that, they are probably not worth what they are being paid now.
What do you mean, menial? As a housewife I sweep floors and clean bathrooms and I have never thought of it as menial work. It is good work and I am proud of it when I am through. I work part time in a department store and I swept the floors in the dock area yesterday. I did not think of it as menial either. There's no honest work that I am too good to do. That's the meaning of conservatism IMHO.
I believe that janitors and cleaning crews should make a couple of dollars over minimum wage. Minimum wage is for your teenage baby sitter. Any employeer who only pays the $5.15 minimum wage is a big time stinker. That's not to say I think the minimum wage should be raised. But I think those who only pay the minimum wage because they can get desperate people work for them are mean greedy bastards.
I worked as a janitor while I was going to school. I looked at it as a way to help pay the bills while I prepared for my life's work, not as a career in itself.
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