Miami janitors enter 14th day of hunger strike

04-20-06,9:25am





UNI has sent its support to the campaign by janitors at the University of Miami to win recognition for their union as a hunger strike by 10 janitors involved in the campaign reached its 14th day.

Already four of the hunger strikers have required medical attention - the latest, 44-year old hunger striker Maritza Gomez, was hospitalised with a very high pulse and feeling faint.

Weakness, faintness and dizziness are all signs of the circulatory system trying to compensate for lack of food. The workers - employed by contractor UNICCO - have won pay increases but want the company to recognise the SEIU. They also want the University to get off the fence and support their right to union recognition.

UNICCO has told the New York Sun that it accepts card checks at other sites that it operates but hasn't yet accepted it at the University of Miami where more that 67% of the 400 janitors on campus have already signed cards in support of a card check election to recognise the union.

'The University has to accept its responsibilities and ensure their contractors provide decent work and observe the global right of workers to organise – and UNICCO should accede to the clear choice of their workers,' said UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings.

'Janitors and other property service workers around the world have been under-valued for long enough, they are no longer prepared to be invisible and exploited. We send our solidarity to all those involved in this campaign and our thoughts are with those who are refusing food.'

SEIU Local 11 has questioned UNICCO's record on Health and Safety violations, maintaining workplaces free from sexual harassment and National Labor Rights violations.

The NLRB has already issued a formal complaint against UNICCO for violating the rights of janitors at the University of Miami after a lengthy investigation of charges brought against UNICCO by janitors were found to have merit. Since the complaint was handed down in January 2006, more than a dozen new charges against UNICCO have surfaced at the University of Miami, and Nova Southeastern.The NLRB dismissed charges filed by UNICCO against Local 11.

Every day UNICCO employees diligently protect, preserve, and clean the University of Miami campus, from the dorms to the football field. Unfortunately, these employees are working in conditions that University of Miami Law School Professor Richard Fischl says: 'ought to shock and embarrass the entire South Florida community.'

At a Good Friday news conference today with janitors who have been on a water only fast for ten days, former Congressman and Director of American Rights at Work David Bonior said: 'If this is about process then it seems that UNICCO and the workers can agree on a process. If this about preventing workers from forming a union UNICCO – and the University – should say so.'

The janitors and students want Donna Shalala, President of the University of Miami and former Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration, to stop shielding UNICCO and start protecting the immigrant janitors on her campus that who have be subjected to months of a company crackdown on janitors who want to form a union. Donna Shalala has the authority to require UNICCO to stop its anti-union campaign and to allow janitors the freedom to choose a union.

The janitors made the pleas in a special podcast that can be seen on the web at www.yeswecane.org. Over the past eight months UNICCO has threatened, fired, spied on, and coerced janitors, who they suspect of supporting the union, frequently targeting leaders for reprisals.