Cincinnati faith leaders say ‘Janitors’ fight is our fight’

Roundtable discussion highlights deepening economic divide, impact on neighborhoods

Cincinnati – On the heels of a historic strike authorization vote by janitors who clean the majority of Cincinnati’s commercial office space, faith leaders are holding a roundtable discussion to talk about the relevance of the janitors’ fight for some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. The roundtable discussion includes faith leaders from Avondale, Bond Hill, and Walnut Hills —financially struggling neighborhoods where many janitors reside—and highlights the implications of the growing economic and social divide for the future of both the city’s economy and the area’s most vulnerable communities.

“The janitors’ fight impacts every neighborhood, every block, in our city,” says Mother Paula Jackson, Rector of the Church of Our Savior. “Everyone, black, white, and Latino, should look on our neighbors as ‘another self,’ a person who needs to live with dignity.”

Cincinnati janitors—the majority of whom are African American—face the same challenges that Cincinnati now faces—increasing frustration by working people over a widening income gap that is stifling families’ efforts to lift themselves out of poverty. A recent analysis of Cincinnati census figures by SEIU shows the 10 highest-poverty zip codes in Cincinnati are 55.3 percent African American. In contrast, the 10 lowest-poverty zip codes are just 2.1 percent African American.

Despite being home to Fortune 500 companies and other major corporations with combined revenues of $177 billion annually—including Fifth Third Bank, Procter and Gamble, Macy’s, Convergys Corp, and Western & Southern—the region’s high number of low-wage, no benefit jobs is increasingly stifling working families’ ability to lift themselves out of poverty. The more than 1,200 janitors who clean Cincinnati’s office space are paid as little as $28 a day with no health or other benefits.

Janitors have been negotiating with their employers—cleaning companies ABM, Jancoa, Professional Maintenance of Cincinnati, Aetna Building Maintenance, Scioto Corp, NSG, OneSource, and GSF—since early March over increased pay, access to health care, and more work hours. Janitors voted Saturday to authorize their Bargaining Committee to call a strike if necessary in the coming weeks, closing out a week characterized by workers’ increasing frustration over their inability to lift themselves out of poverty with their current low wages and lack of access to health care. Days earlier, four janitors were arrested at Fifth Third Bank as they appealed to the corporate giant to support good jobs with health care for the city’s hard-working families.