Privatized Custodians Reach Tentative Contract

Two years after the school district privatized a third of its unionized custodial workforce, the new, part-time workers cleaning city schools now have their own union — and a tentative deal with their private employer that would bring them health care, sick days and paid vacations.

SEIU 32BJ, which represents 162 part-time custodians in city schools, reached a tentative agreement this week on a two-and-a-half year contract with a Cleveland-based company called GCA Services Group, Inc.

GCA started cleaning the schools in January 2012, after a panel of arbitrators awarded the district to privatize a third of its unionized custodial workforce. The decision allowed the district to create a hybrid workforce of 162 part-time GCA custodians and 100 unionized, full-time workers in AFSCME Local 287.

The GCA custodians have been working part-time for nearly two years without a contract and without any benefits or raises. They make $14.67 per hour.

New GCA workers began fighting for a contract after they joined SEIU 32BJ, a union representing some 4,500 janitors across the state. SEIU 32BJ spokeswoman Jessica Ramos said the union is pleased to have settled a tentative labor agreement that would give workers pay increases, healthcare coverage, paid sick days and vacation time.

The proposed contract runs from July 1, 2013 to Dec. 31, 2015, according to Ramos. The deal includes a 50-cent raise retroactive to July 1, followed by a 30-cent and a 40-cent raise each following year, she said. Health care coverage would kick in during the second year of the contract. She said the union was not successful in another area — asking GCA to upgrade workers to full-time jobs. 

Some of the changes come due to state and local laws: The state recently passed a new law requiring employers to offer paid sick time. And custodians’ $14.67-per-hour wage is based on the city’s living wage law, which aldermen updated in 2011. The law calls for the wage to rise according to federal poverty guidelines.

Under the tentative agreement, the cost of GCA’s contract with New Haven public schools would rise from $2.5 million to $3 million per year, according to Ramos.

Workers still have to ratify the agreement in a Nov. 2 vote.

The agreement was a joint effort by GCA, the union, the school district and the city. Schools Chief Operating Officer Will Clark and Sean Matteson, the mayor’s chief of staff, participated in the budget talks. (GCA couldn’t be reached for this story.)

The contract poses a new challenge for New Haven schools’ effort to curb custodial costs through privatization. The school district has been saving $2 million per year in overtime and salaries by privatizing a third of the full-time custodial jobs, according to Clark.

Mayor John DeStefano pushed for the move, arguing the city had to do something to drive down ballooning long-term labor costs. Before the privatization plan, on any given day, 25 percent of custodians would be absent ​“because of contractual work rules which promote abuse of sick time and excessive call-outs,” Matteson has said.

Rank-and-file custodians fought the privatization plan. They voted against it, then were forced to abide by the changes by a panel of arbitrators. Critics argued it would weaken the city by replacing good-paying union jobs with low-paying part-time work with no job security.

The subsequent savings came in large part because the new part-time workers were making a lower wage. Full-time custodians from Local 287 make between $19.72 and $24.64 per hour. GCA’s new contract would bring salaries up to $15.87 by 2014, beginning to close the gap.

“We all knew that ultimately the part-time workers would ultimately unionize,” Clark said. ​“We didn’t anticipate those savings would remain flat forever.”

Though their hourly pay is lower than Local 287’s, GCA workers are getting a generous wage, Clark said. The median national pay for a janitor was $10.68 as of the latest count in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Clark said overall, the privatization effort will still save the district a lot of money.

“The custodian agreement, even with the back-end, part-time unionization,” remains ​“the largest salary/overtime reduction in the history of New Haven negotiations,” he claimed. He said the annual savings is about $5 million if you count health and pension benefits, which are paid for by the city side of the budget, not the school system.

Clark said district and its two custodial unions are still meeting their goal: ​“cleaner buildings, less money” is ​“exactly what the goal was, and what we achieved.”

Juan Hernandez, 32BJ SEIU statewide director, called the deal ​“an important victory for the workers and their families as we welcome them to our union.”

“The benefits and wage increases we were able to secure will help our communities prosper,” he said in a press release.

“We work hard to provide students with a clean and healthy school, but we weren’t being provided with the benefits to keep healthy ourselves,” said Arnold Hunter, school cleaner at Wilbur Cross High School in the press release. ​“I am proud to say that because my coworkers and I stood together, we won significant improvements to our quality of life.”