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June 23, 2005

Labor activists take concerns to Legislature

Jeremy Schwab

Bearing purple Service Employees International Union t-shirts and banners and chanting pro-union slogans, at least 50 janitors and building maintenance workers marched to the State House last week to pressure legislators to pass a bill that would require newly hired building cleaning contractors to retain the previous company’s workers for at least 90 days.

Representatives of SEIU Local 615, which claims 16,000 area janitors as members, and other supporters say the bill is necessary to ensure job security for cleaning and maintenance workers.

Currently, when building owners switch cleaning companies workers have no protections and a new company owner can bring in all new workers.

Rocio Saenz, president of Local 615, urged members of the Committee on Labor and Work Development to put themselves in the place of janitors.

“I just want you to take a minute and imagine you work two jobs just to make ends meet,” she said. “You have to live paycheck to paycheck with no real opportunity to save money. You have worked in the same building for 10 years, and never given [your boss] any reason to complain. You come in Monday and you’re told you’re out of a job. There is no prior notice, no severance package.”

Supporters say the bill would allow janitors a chance to look for other work, but also to impress their new employers and thus keep their jobs.

Temp workers demand rights

Another bill before the committee would force temp agencies and other temporary employers to tell workers what type of work they are being hired for and what pay, benefits and hours they will receive.

The bill, dubbed An Act to Establish a Temporary Worker’s Right to Know, would also forbid temporary employers from charging workers for protective equipment or charging them check cashing fees.

Members of a coalition of temporary workers, immigrant community advocates and labor rights said the bill would help protect the many undocumented immigrants and others caught in unhealthy or dangerous working conditions with minimal pay and little knowledge of their employers.

“A temporary agency does not have to reveal to workers where they are being taken to work, the types of duties the workers will be performing, how long they are going to work and how much they will be paid,” said Jennifer Huggins, an employment attorney with the Greater Boston Legal Services. “Such lax regulations completely ignore the rights of workers and expose them to employer abuse.”

Vans pick up undocumented workers on curbs across the Commonwealth each morning to shuttle them to work in cranberry bogs, fish-packing plants or other tough, manual jobs.

Often, the workers are told the first name of the driver and are kept in the dark as to where they are going, whom they will work for and what type of work they will do.

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