Office Guards Push for Pact (reported by the Boston Herald)

Eye successes of Janitors

BOSTON HERALD: Article by Scott Van Voorhis / Photo by Angela Rowlings

After a two-year campaign, a major union has succeeded in recruiting hundreds of security guards working in downtown Boston towers and Cambridge office buildings.

Now the Service Employees International Union is preparing for a fall push to get its new members a contract to boost wages and improve working conditions.

Even as they hold down key posts in a post-9/11 society, downtown security guards typically take home less pay than the janitors who clean the same buildings, union officials contend.

Still, some fear the union’s drive will cast a cloud over a downtown tower market that is already facing challenges from a slowing economy. In 2002, the SEIU staged a headline-grabbing strike in a successful bid to win a new contract for the thousands of janitors who clean offices in downtown towers. The weeks-long campaign featured daily rallies and demonstrations outside various downtown towers.

“The timing of it is unfortunate right now,” said David Begelfer, head of the local chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties. “This is not a time when businesses are feeling very confident.”

But the SEIU contends it can’t afford the luxury of waiting for better times, with its members struggling - and failing - to make ends meet on $11 an hour. Company health insurance is often too expensive to buy, and many downtown guards don’t even get paid sick days or vacation time.

The union has signed up 1,200 guards working for three security contractors protecting Boston and Cambridge high-rises.

Union negotiators have already begun hammering out the outlines of a contract, focusing initially on non-economic issues like work rules. The SEIU is now preparing to issue its wage demands, said Lauren Jacobs, organizing director of Boston-based SEIU Local 615.

Jacobs declined to name a number. But the union is making pains to point out that SEIU-represented janitors who clean downtown buildings make more, starting at $13.25 an hour.

Tomekka Thompson, a new union member from Dorchester and a mother of a 6-year-old, said the $10.25 an hour she makes working as a guard at a downtown tower doesn’t stretch far.

“I have a very hard time trying to pay rent, pay groceries and pay bills on the wages we receive,” Thompson said.