ARCHIVES OF LEAD STORIES
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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