Talking Dirty

Playing on that support, the Justice for Janitors campaign used the moral aspect of their fight to build coalitions with the religious community. In the weeks leading up to the janitors' strike deadline, ministers, priests and nuns played starring roles in rallies and marches, drawing support from many people who are normally suspicious of labor unions.

"It's a social justice issue," says Sister Antonia Anthony of the Marycrest Franciscan Sisters. "Many of the janitors are immigrants, and they're invisible. We wanted to show our support."

She joined a group of four clergy who volunteered to speak with building managers on behalf of the janitors. The union realized that one of the best ways to pressure cleaning contractors was to go directly to the people who hire them. And since most of the large office buildings in Denver are owned by huge national real estate investment companies like Equity Office Properties and Crescent Real Estate, the local managers often found themselves becoming targets of activists -- including some they might see in church on Sunday. Even so, the clergy typically received a cold reception in their offices.

But after the janitors won a new contract, Anthony discovered her involvement had been more vital than she realized.

"One of the building managers said, 'We're tired of getting calls from all these nuns,'" she says.

Recognizing the importance of the relationship between unions and the church, the AFL-CIO started a special program called Seminary Summer to help clergy in training understand labor issues. This past spring, the SEIU sent Arnie Raj, a student at the Iliff School of Theology who is studying to be a United Methodist minister, to the program. When he came back to Denver in June, Raj threw himself into the Justice for Janitors campaign.

"The religious community has a different effect on the struggle," he says. "We're saying it's a moral thing, not just an economic question. The janitors aren't asking for anything outrageous. I've gone to more protests and rallies in the past year than I have in my whole life. We'd honk our horns and drive around the building. We'd bring in a hundred janitors with megaphones. It was in-your-face. They knew we weren't going away."

Raj also made visits to property managers with the other clergy. He vividly recalls one woman being particularly troubled to have a priest in her office. "As she was kicking us out, she told the priest, ''I'm a good Catholic, Father.' She didn't want him to think badly of her."

The culmination of their efforts was a June 26 downtown rally of 1,000 janitors and their supporters at 17th and Welton streets. The janitors were furious over the cleaning companies' contract proposal that called for 7 percent wage cuts for new hires and no expansion of health insurance. A strike seemed inevitable.

On July 1, just as Denver's janitors were ready to hit the streets, negotiators for the contractors called union officials into a marathon negotiating session. By 3 a.m., a settlement was reached that gave the janitors much of what they were seeking.

The contract raises the janitors' hourly wages by $1.30 over the next five years and, most important, expands the number of full-time positions to 550, giving many families health coverage for the first time.

"We were able to achieve every objective we had," Alzaga boasts. "For the first time in the history of this union, we have family health insurance. We were able to win $16 million for health care and salaries." This, despite an office-vacancy rate of 25 percent in metro Denver.

Before the contract agreement, Mike Severns, the cleaning companies' lead negotiator, had told the media the companies couldn't afford to pay for better benefits because of the vacancies, but he now speaks favorably of the contract.

"We believe it was a fair settlement both parties can live with," he says.

As for the janitors' in-your-face tactics, Severns claims they didn't affect the negotiations. "They believe for some reason [the tactics] are effective," he says. "All they're effective at is attracting the news media. When we're in deliberations, we're not affected by those things."

The agreement calls for the new benefits to be phased in over five years, and the cleaning companies are betting that Denver's office market will improve and their business will pick up over the next few years.

"Our revenues are down, and anything like labor costs rising is a concern," says Sean Schraeder, regional manager for ABM Janitorial Services, which, with 600 employees, is one of the largest cleaning companies in Denver. "When you talk about increasing janitorial costs, you have to raise rents. The last thing people want to do is raise rents in this economy."

However, Schraeder does see advantages in the new contract.

"There was a time when we turned over a new crew every month; we had 400 percent turnover rates," Schraeder says. "If the janitors have benefits, they stay around longer. Cleaners who are in a building longer are better cleaners. When you have a full-time worker with family health care, they'll stay in that building."