All photos are courtesy of 32BJ/Ann Hermes.
More than 12,000 janitorial workers across New England represented by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ reached a tentative contract agreement on Wednesday, November 15, with the Maintenance Contractors of New England (MCNE), an organization representing 60 individual employers. The deal outlines historic wage increases, an increased number of full-time positions, and more. This deal has become just the latest win at the bargaining table during a historic year of labor activism. As of Wednesday, November 22, the members of 32BJ voted to ratify the agreement with 97% approval.
The tentative agreement was settled mere hours before the contract expired, warding off a strike by thousands of Local 32BJ members that would have affected around 90% of commercial buildings in Boston. Local 32BJ represents janitorial workers working at a wide range of institutions, including several Cambridge biotech labs, the Prudential Center, the campuses of Northeastern University and Berklee College of Music, and all MBTA train stations.
Among other wins, the agreement secured a 20% wage increase over the course of a four-year contract, marking it as the largest wage increase ever negotiated by the union. “It’s evident from all the members I’ve spoken to that they’re really please with [the agreement],” said Franklin Soults, Regional Communications Manager at 32BJ. “The wage increase is really historic. Oftentimes, the contracts have a 50 or 60 cent-a-year raise—this one, for three quarters of the janitors, it’s over a dollar in the first year. It’s a real joy to be able to win that for everybody.”
One of the major considerations during negotiations was properly compensating janitorial workers for their work during the COVID-19 pandemic, explained Soults. The union approached this issue, in part, by fighting for the creation of more full-time janitorial positions, which would then open employer benefits—such as employer-sponsored health insurance—to these workers. The deal negotiated last week guarantees the conversion of 500 janitorial jobs from part-time to full-time across Cambridge and Boston over the course of the agreement.
“We felt strongly that we needed to find as much full-time work as we could because of what people had gone through. The cleaners, the janitors had to work through COVID, and so many of them got sick. So many of them died from COVID,” said Soults.
Roxane Rivera, Local 32BJ’s Assistant to the President and the head of the union in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, agreed. In a written statement, she added: “After the trials of the pandemic, which took the lives of many of our members and threatened countless more, this agreement takes a big step toward ensuring that our members have good jobs with decent pay and solid benefits. In fact, no worker deserves less.”
In addition to wage increases and more full-time jobs, the agreement adds Juneteenth as a paid holiday, gives workers an additional paid day off, and improves contributions to the pension fund.
This is the third major labor agreement to affect Northeastern University’s campus over the last year and a half. In September 2022, the dining hall workers at Northeastern (employed by the contractor Chartwells) approved the most lucrative contract in their union’s—UNITE/HERE Local 26—history. Earlier this fall, the graduate workers at Northeastern voted overwhelmingly to be represented by the United Auto Workers securing victory with 94% of the votes cast.
