Janitors Strike Back

 Community groups organized by the Thomas Merton Center, including anti-war, religious and social-justice organizations held a demonstration to support healthcare for all at Centre City Tower, Smithfield and 7th Street, on the morning of Friday, October 8.
Centre City Tower has been the sight of an ongoing labor dispute with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 3 since the building removed its nine janitors and union cleaning contractor and brought in PF Enterprises, a nonunion part-time company that pays little more than minimum wage and does not provide health insurance to janitors. Centre City Tower had been covered under the SEIU Master Contract that includes over 90% of downtown Pittsburgh buildings over 100,000 square feet. After three months of picketing and demonstrations, a four-day hunger strike and 52 people arrested for civil disobedience, County Executive Dan Onorato intervened urging both parties to resolve the dispute through third party mediation. That has yet to happen.

Centre City Tower is owned by Ted Knetzger and Bill Rainer. Both are out of town businessmen with ties to the Clinton Administration and significant Democratic campaign contributors. It is ironic that both the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and the Consumer Healthcare Coalition, advocates for greater access to affordable healthcare, are headquartered in the building.

The raucous demonstration drew about 125 people from such diverse organizations as the NAACP, SEIU local 3, the Thomas Merton Center and Pittsburgh Organizing Group. There were calls made for universal free health care for all, an ousting of the Bush Administration, which currently controls the National Labor Relations Board, and justice for the nine janitors unfairly fired last New Year’s Eve. An enormous banner was covertly dropped from the top of the building to the delight of everyone present that called for justice for the janitors. The rally wrapped up around 9am with the overwhelming feeling that a strong message is being sent warning building owners to not fire union workers and that decent health care is a right, not a privilege reserved only for the wealthy.

 - Jeremy Shenk is the Administrative Assistant at the Thomas Merton Center. He is a delegate for the IWW, a resident of Bloomfield and a proud Steelers fan.

 
Left, Janitors and supporters rally across the street from Center City. Right, John May of the NAACP Veterans Affairs Committee speaks. (Photos by Marie Skoczylas)