Justice for Janitors Day

Janitors are the first line of defense against the current global pandemic and have shouldered the responsibility of keeping our world safe during COVID-19. This week, thousands of essential sanitation workers, both SEIU members and non-union members, will join cleaners around the world. The world is organizing a series of rallies, marches, celebrations, digital actions and strikes starting today and lasting throughout the week. Events will take place in honor of International Justice Day with cleaners demanding fair wages, health care and safety protection, as well as a fairer and more humane immigration system.

“Today is Justice for Janitors Day, and I am proud to stand with the cleaners who make up the majority of women and the immigrant workforce. This week, thousands of cleaners will take to the streets to demand fair wages, healthcare, a fair and humane immigration system, and more. For 31 years, essential cleaners have fearlessly pushed forward demanding that they be respected, protected and paid,” said Mary Kay Henry, President of the Service Workers International Union (SEIU)) said. "Our fight will continue until corporations and Congress honors the essential work that sanitation workers provided before, during and after this deadly pandemic."

The confrontation captured on news cameras and covered by media around the world, led to public support for the cleaners, and they won an alliance. Their victory has inspired thousands of low-paid workers of color sanitation workers, security officers and airport workers to unionize and win a better life for themselves, their families and the communities in which they live.

In the last 5 years alone, SEIU cleaners have struggled to win powerful union contracts that have successfully brought more than $1 billion to homes and neighborhoods where workers live. Today, two-thirds of union cleaning workers have won hourly wages of $15 or more per hour, 70% have won much-needed full-time hours, and 85% of sanitation workers have won. Full-time students now have access to employer-paid family health care.

This week, more than 30 years after the start of the Justice for Janitors campaign, cleaners will take to the streets again to demand that companies provide safe working conditions, good union work for all necessary action and a humane immigration system.

I did not eat or drink anything for 17 days in order to win a union because it was the only way for me to give my son a better life. Clara Vargas, 32BJ, a janitor at the University of Miami, who is celebrating the 15th anniversary of the famous fight of the UM cleaning team. Since then, about thousands of airport workers and cleaners have been helped because we know that there is power in numbers.

“I have been cleaning for over 30 years. During the pandemic, we are called essential workers but we are not treated as such. The Janitors have fought and won a lot since the first Justice Day for Janitors Day, but there is more work to be done,” said Julio Ramirez, a Sanitation Worker in Los Angeles. It is said that sanitary workers across the country are gathered together to fight for a better life."

It is said that they have been cleaning in Denver for over 14 years. These problems are not new to us. We have always deserved respect, better protection, and a fair salary for the work we do, but this past year has been like no other. My family's lives are threatened every day," said Marisol Santos, March leader and member of SEIU Local 105. We've been called heroes and it's time we were treated as such."