OREGONIAN: Jettisoning justice for janitors

Jettisoning justice for janitors
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The Oregonian

By Steve Duin

E lvira Munoz is, I'm afraid, all too typical of the men and women who clean up after you at the Rose Garden and Memorial Coliseum.

She's paid Oregon's minimum wage of $7.80 an hour, although she is rarely told how many hours she'll be working until she arrives at the Rose Quarter aboard MAX after the ride in from her basement "apartment" in Gresham.

Because she is only a part-time worker, Munoz, 32, receives no health insurance through her employer, ServiceMaster of Swan Island. She receives no sick pay -- when she suffered a severe ankle sprain in the Coliseum two weeks ago, she says, there wasn't even a first-aid kit on the premises -- no holiday pay, and four exhilarating hours of vacation time for each year of service.

What's wrong with this picture? At least three things, off the top of my head:

Memorial Coliseum is still a city-owned property, and I was under the illusion that Portland's City Council resolved in 2001 that seasonal workers who labor at PGE Park, or on other city turf, deserve a "living wage."

ServiceMaster claims on its Web site, "We are accountable to honor God in all we do." The Web site continues, "Faithful adherence to a strong moral and ethical ideal should guide all aspects of a company's operation," an ideal that serves as "a constant reminder for us to do the right thing in the right way."

And the salary and benefits of Elvira Munoz qualify?

Last summer, ServiceMaster of Swan Island agreed to pay $84,125 to settle a class-action lawsuit that argued the company violated state overtime and minimum wage issues.

Yet Portland Arena Management, which owns the Rose Garden, still recontracted with ServiceMaster for janitorial services, despite pleas by Labor Commissioner Dan Gardner and city Commissioner Sam Adams to select a company that offered a living wage and affordable benefits.

Adams is still hammering on Global Spectrum, which manages the complex for PAM (and which didn't return phone calls). "There aren't that many (janitors) and they're not asking for a lot," Adams said. "Global Spectrum is part of this huge business empire. Last time I checked, they were very profitable. They have the money. They just don't have the moral backbone to do it."

When the operators at PGE Park were similarly disposed, the city stepped in to make up the difference between the "market rate" for these services and the hourly fair-wage (now $10.57) amount. That wage supplement cost the city $112,000 in 2006, said David Logsdon, the city's spectator facilities manager.

However, Logsdon said, PAM's contract at the Rose Quarter "predates Council's initiation of the fair-wages program." As a result, he added, "We don't have the ability to intervene in the marketplace and say we want higher wages because we're not paying for them."

Both Adams and Commissioner Erik Sten are eager to change that. "It's against city policy to win the contract when the savings are on the back of the workers," Sten said.

Adams has been involved for 18 months in "Justice for Janitor" issues because justice is so slow in coming, not only at the Rose Quarter but in major office buildings downtown.

On Tuesday, SEIU Local 49 will file an unfair labor practices complaint against ServiceMaster Swan Island for dismantling the janitors' pension, benefits and negotiated wage scale at the Union Bank of California in Portland. Out of sympathy for that complaint, janitors at the Rose Quarter are considering a walk-out and strike, said SEIU's Maggie Long.

Should that walk-out occur, Elvira Munoz, suspended between crutches, will limp along, proceeding with a sense of moral purpose that should -- but won't -- embarrass her employer.

Steve Duin: 503-221-8597; 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 steveduin@news.oregonian.com http://steveduin.blogs.oregonlive.com

©2007 The Oregonian

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