The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Jun. 19--The nation's largest pension fund and a state assemblyman have thrown their support behind Sacramento's striking janitors.
Staffers at Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg's district office packed boxes and moved out of their downtown building Wednesday in a show of solidarity with the janitors picketing outside on the second day of the strike.
'It's a matter of principal,' said Susan McKee, the district director for Steinberg, D-Sacramento. 'We can't cross a picket line.'
The union also recruited the $138 billion California Public Employees' Retirement System to use its financial clout to pressure major building owners to settle the dispute.
'We have a responsible contractors policy which addresses the issue of fair wages and family health benefits,' said CalPERS board president Sean Harrigan, himself a union official. 'People at work ought to have insurance. The fact that these (building maintenance) contractors aren't providing their employees and families with coverage really does infringe the requirements of our responsible contractor's policy. We will encourage them to comply with the policy.'
Members of the Service Employees International Union, Local 1877, which represents about 1,100 janitors in the Sacramento area, authorized a strike Friday. The vote came after the janitors rejected a contract offer from building maintenance companies that they said did not significantly increase their $7 hourly wage or provide affordable family health care benefits.
The building maintenance contractors' negotiator described the offer as 'fair.' It provided a 20-cent-an-hour increase each year for the next four, an increase of 45 cents in year five and family health benefits for any any employee with five or more years of service.
The union, which picketed 40 downtown buildings on Tuesday, added 40 mostly suburban buildings to the strike Wednesday.
CalPERS has a major investment partnerships with Jones Lange LaSalle and CB Richard Ellis -- two of the largest building owners impacted by the strike. CB Richard Ellis runs a $500 million real estate fund for CalPERS while Jones Lange manages a $1.5 billion industrial real estate portfolio.
Union leaders asked CalPERS officials to participate in meetings with building owners and for the board members to take an active role in the bargaining process.
'We'll help where we can,' said Harrigan, a vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. 'I need to dig into it a little bit more and find out how we can be helpful.'
Meanwhile, callers to the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency heard a recorded phone message that said, 'Due to a labor strike that has affected our building we have relocated.' Department officials could not be reached for comment.
Assemblyman Steinberg, who pays $3,400 a month rent for his district office, said that he would consider giving notice to the building owner if the strike is not resolved.
'We love our district offices,' he said. 'It's on the ground floor, in a great location but none of that matters in comparison to doing everything I can to assure that these hard working people get health insurance for themselves and their families.'
Craig Sheehy, president of the Building Owners and Managers Association of Sacramento, said that he found the relocations 'shocking.'
'They can vacate, but they still have to pay rent,' he said.
Sheehy said that he's trying to set up a meeting with the building owners and managers and the cleaning contractors on Friday morning. The contractors, he said, had a meeting of their own on Wednesday.
'I hope they make a decision to talk to the union,' he said.
'We just want [the strike] to end quickly,' Sheehy said. 'But the building managers and owners still feel it's up to the contractors to negotiate this contract with the union.'
Not all state agencies are showing their support by leaving their buildings. Many state workers enter through so-called 'neutral doors' where picketing is prohibited. Employees are using such entrances at both the Department of Finance located at 915 L Street, and the General Services Department located in the ziggurat building in West Sacramento, according to the departments' spokespeople.
By Melanie Payne and Gilbert Chan
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(c) 2003, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
