Miami Janitors Have Won a First Contract — but Some Are Still Facing Employer Resistance
Miami-area janitors, the lowest paid of any major US metropolitan area, have won a collective bargaining agreement with the city’s cleaning contractors — but one holdout company, Coastal Building Maintenance, still refuses to sign.
Custodial workers with 32BJ SEIU protest in southern Florida. (32BJ SEIU Florida)
Imelda Herrera was wearing a union button while cleaning a building owned by the DWS Group, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, in Coral Gables, Florida, on the night of June 23. Toward the end of her shift as a custodial employee of Coastal Building Maintenance (CBM), she was approached by a supervisor.
Pointing at the button, which read, “I’m an essential worker,” the manager asked her, “What is that?” recounts Herrera through a translator.
“I told her that it was from the union, and we are fighting for better benefits and wages,” she continues. The manager told Herrera that she was going to take a photo of the button so that it could be sent to the company’s higher-ups who would “decide what was going to happen” to Herrera and the three other workers who were also sporting the buttons.
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