Janice Fine is an Associate Professor at Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations
In an unprecedented victory, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL), a Twin Cities worker center founded in 2005, has won a Responsible Contractor Policy from the Target Corporation. Target came to the table and engaged in discussion directly with store janitors after four years of activity during which CTUL released a study documenting the substandard wages and working conditions of the retail cleaning sector, organized a series of actions including a 12-day hunger strike and 3 strikes in 2013. The campaign had already resulted in a crackdown on wage theft and health and safety violations, recovery of over half a million dollars in back wages and an increase in the average wage across the labor market from $7.25 to $8.50 an hour.
As a consequence of focusing attention on substandard conditions, there was considerable industry consolidation and CTUL then pushed to institutionalize and expand on those victories as workers began demanding union representation.
Beginning in September of 2014, vendor housekeeping service agreements in Target stores will include:
- Protecting and ensuring workers rights to collectively bargain with their employers
- Ensuring that workers have the right to form safety committees in their workplace made up of at least 50% of workers who are designated by their co-workers
- Ensuring that workers are not forced to work 7 days a week
The agreement with Target to hold cleaning subcontractors at its stores to a code of conduct is extremely important because it represents an acknowledgement, for the first time, of responsibility for labor conditions in the company supply chain–even if the Target corporation is not signing janitors’ paychecks. To organize successfully to raise standards workers have to be able to reach the actors at the top of the chain who have the power and resources to change the terms and conditions of work at their subcontractors.
SEIU is now moving to organize the janitors in a cooperative membership arrangement with CTUL which is also a groundbreaking development because while unions and worker centers are working together more and more on policy issues, there are still relatively few examples of actual joint organizing.
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July 9
In Today’s News and Commentary, the Supreme Court green-lights mass firings of federal workers, the Agricultural Secretary suggests Medicaid recipients can replace deported farm workers, and DHS ends Temporary Protected Status for Hondurans and Nicaraguans. In an 8-1 emergency docket decision released yesterday afternoon, the Supreme Court lifted an injunction by U.S. District Judge Susan […]
July 8
In today’s news and commentary, Apple wins at the Fifth Circuit against the NLRB, Florida enacts a noncompete-friendly law, and complications with the No Tax on Tips in the Big Beautiful Bill. Apple won an appeal overturning a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision that the company violated labor law by coercively questioning an employee […]
July 7
LA economy deals with fallout from ICE raids; a new appeal challenges the NCAA antitrust settlement; and the EPA places dissenting employees on leave.
July 6
Municipal workers in Philadelphia continue to strike; Zohran Mamdani collects union endorsements; UFCW grocery workers in California and Colorado reach tentative agreements.
July 4
The DOL scraps a Biden-era proposed rule to end subminimum wages for disabled workers; millions will lose access to Medicaid and SNAP due to new proof of work requirements; and states step up in the noncompete policy space.
July 3
California compromises with unions on housing; 11th Circuit rules against transgender teacher; Harvard removes hundreds from grad student union.