Editorials

Picketing Janitors Protest I-House Job Conditions

By JAKOB SCHILLER
Friday October 31, 2003

Every day this week, a small group of janitors has picketed UC Berkeley’s well-known International House—home to many of the university’s international graduate students—in response to what they call unfair working conditions and harassment from the building supervisor.  

International House—also known as the I-House—has often been a focus of labor strife because of what union organizers and employees call its unique status in the university. 

Though International House is a self-supporting nonprofit organization, its employees work for the university under the same American Federation of State Municipal and County Employees (AFSCME) Local 3299 contract as the rest of university. 

This mix of conditions, say the janitors, allows the I-House to treat them in a way that wouldn’t be tolerated elsewhere on campus. 

Among their concerns is what they call an uneven division of work, in which some employees are assigned twice as much as others. 

“We’ve gotten to a point where these unlucky custodians feel like they are working in Siberia,” said Nester Salo, a custodian who has been working at the I-House for 13 years. “They have more work that they can handle in an eight-hour shift.” 

Salo said other custodians are assigned spaces that only take two to three hours to clean. 

Employees and union organizers designed what they say are equitable work assignments for a scheduled meeting with building administration in July. According to the union, administrators rejected the new proposal, a move the employees called bad faith bargaining. The picket line is the result. 

Salo said he and his colleagues also say one supervisor is routinely disrespectful and unfair to employees, continually yelling inappropriate comments and creating an uncomfortable work environment. 

“They’re treating us like dirt and it shouldn’t be that way,” he said. 

The supervisor did not return calls about the employees’ comments. 

Both sides met Tuesday, this time with a representative from the university, and are set to meet again within the next two weeks to try to re-draw work areas. Howard Lewis, the university’s senior labor relations representative will attend. 

“I don’t know what is going to come out of the meeting,” said Lewis. “We have to have credibility on both sides, whereas I do represent the management I have to also represent the employees.” 

The janitors say they’ll keep picketing until the issues are resolved.