Last week, Boston was bracing for a potential strike of Service Employees International Union Local 615, the union that covers about 14,000 janitors in commercial buildings across Boston and New England. The union held a three-week strike in 2002, but this year, an impasse was averted: Sometime after 2 a.m. on Monday, the union reached a deal with an association of cleaning contractors. The resulting four-year contract, subject to a vote by union members, outlines a hopeful vision for living-wage jobs.
The union’s biggest demands involved a wage increase and the chance to convert jobs from part-time to full-time, allowing workers to qualify for health care benefits. About two-thirds of union members currently work part-time, a large portion of them just a few hours shy of the 30 hours required for health coverage to kick in. The new deal increases wages over four years, and also guarantees that 680 part-time jobs in Greater Boston will become full-time over the life of the contract. It also promises to staff all new, large buildings in Boston and Cambridge with full-time janitors. That means that by 2016, at least half of the janitors who do back-breaking work in downtown buildings will have access to an enviable health plan.
This is good news for the workers, but also for the general public: Janitors with health insurance won’t be funneled to publicly funded MassHealth. The deal also offers hopeful prospects for the growth of the middle class. If janitors can better support their families with a single job, they’re likely to have more time for job and language training. Both sides deserve credit for reaching an agreement that preserves jobs, and also improves them.