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News Archive: Pittsburgh

After Four Years, Suburban Pittsburgh Janitors Join With Downtown

This victory is especially important because the downtown janitors are getting ready to negotiate their contract, which expires on Halloween.  Negotiating for the suburbs and the downtown at the same time puts us in a much stronger position to raise and protect the standards for all Pittsburgh janitors.  

Pittsburgh Update

Finding a solution to the Centre City Tower crisis is a top priority given Pittsburgh’s contract deadline of October 31st.  Pittsburgh janitors have completed a DVD documenting the search for Bill Rainer and Ted Knetzger, the building’s owners.  It features great footage of their visit to Greenwich Connecticut to search for Ted.  If the crisis is not settled, we could be facing a lockout in November as other owners try to follow CCT’s example.  A lockout would severely hurt our ability to help Bob Casey unseat Senator Rick Santorum.

Local 3 Members From Schools and University of Pitt Help Stop Cuts in Education Funding

On December 6, 2005, members from the schools division and the University of Pittsburgh joined forces in Harrisburg. They successfully lobbied against a bill that would require drastic cuts in funding for K-12 and  higher education.  If the cuts had passed, the wages, benefits and pensions of our 2,500 members who work in the schools division would be in jeopardy. 

SEIU Local 3 Gets "Displaced Worker Protection Ordinance" Passed in Pittsburgh

SEIU Local 3 and Operating Engineers Cooperation Opens Up Career Paths for Janitors

Schools Division Unites To Fight Health Care Cutbacks

Pittsburgh petition signing: Photo by Tom Hoffman

There are nearly 25 contracts that schools division members are negotiating right now. In many of these negotiations, employers are asking for significant monthly contributions from members.  These contributions range from a flat $15 a month up to a whopping 15% of the premium cost.  In the steward trainings for school division members this spring, Local 3 members agreed that these cut backs threaten the health care of ALL schools division members.  To show their support, the members have kicked off a petition drive to collect signatures from all members of the schools division.  These petitions will be used at negotiations to show employers that all Local 3 members will fight to protect members’ health care.

Fight for Centre City Janitors' Jobs and
Healthcare Continues
Pittsburgh, PA

For many years, family healthcare was completely out of reach for the downtown Pittsburgh janitors.  Out of nearly 1000 janitors, only a handful could afford to provide healthcare for their families.  In the fall of 2003, with the support of a broad cross section of the Pittsburgh community, the janitors negotiated a contract that provided affordable— not free — family healthcare for the first time in over ten years

During the holidays in 2003, nine janitors who cleaned Centre City Tower, a major building in downtown Pittsburgh, were told that they had one day to clean out their lockers and go home.  Many of these janitors had worked in the building for a long time.  One woman cleaned in this building for 25 years and worked for four different cleaning contractors.

Independence Management, the management of Centre City Tower chose to terminate the janitors' employer and hire PF Enterprises, a non-Union cleaning contractor that refused to honor the janitors' contract and provide them with health benefits.  Independence Management took this action to avoid paying the increases necessary to provide the janitors with affordable healthcare.

This action by Independence Management was not only a slap in the face to the Pittsburgh community that had come together to solve the janitors' healthcare crisis, but it was also morally and legally wrong.  It has taken decent jobs with livable wages, full time work, affordable family healthcare and a pension and turned them into part-time jobs with minimum wages, no benefits and no pension. SEIU Local 3 is continuing to pursue a federal law suit to regain the jobs of the nine fired workers.  For the Pittsburgh community the Centre City struggle has become such a symbol of the struggle to obtain and preserve access to healthcare, that organizations such as the Thomas Merton Center have incorporated it in their overall campaign for affordable healthcare.  You can find more information about their campaign at www.ThomasMertonCenter.org

 Learn what has happened since the lock-out
 Read an editorial, "Centre City Gulag," from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
 Read the report from the public hearing, including more background details