Pay The Workers Their Due

Equal pay for all:

Hoping to prevent the strike from escalating as it did eight years ago, Mayor Villaraigosa called a closed-door meeting at City Hall between the janitors and key building owners to encourage the two sides to return to the bargaining table. Although the contract negotiations are technically between the janitors and the cleaning companies that hire them, building owners hold significant leverage in moving negotiations along.

Because the owners pay the contractors for janitorial services, they can threaten to stop hiring a cleaning company if prices get too high. But if a strike becomes widespread and disruptive, owners might feel pressured to settle quickly rather than risk bad publicity.

The union is seeking unspecified wage increases, but the main issue is to narrow the gap between janitors with the highest and the lowest pay. Janitors in downtown Los Angeles and Century City earn $1.30 an hour more on average than janitors in outlying areas.