Custodians continue protest, threaten strike

Thursday marked the second consecutive week USC custodial staff protested after the university offered a lower wage increase than the staffers find acceptable.

The contract between USC and Aramark, the company that employs USC’s custodians, ended last week. Custodians said they deserve more than the 30 cent wage increase that USC offered, so they are continuing to protest and threatening to strike.

“Our workers have said that [they] are ready to strike,” said Christian Ramirez, policy director at SEIU West, a branch of the local union that represents the workers, “and they went even further and said if [they] don’t get the dignity and respect, then the folks that make millions of dollars on this campus should start preparing their brooms and their mops because they’re going to end up cleaning. Workers are not going to clean their mess.”

Salvador Hernandez, who has worked at USC for 32 years, said custodians like him hope the protest encourages university leadership to return to the bargaining table and offers workers more. Among the custodians’ demands, Hernandez said, are higher wages, increased staff and better benefits and health care. Right now, he said, custodians’ wages haven’t increased to match inflation.

Custodians work in 8-hour shifts early in the morning, throughout the day and overnight to clean and maintain university spaces. Hernandez said many workers also commute long distances, making their days longer.

Overall, Ramirez said custodians are pushing for the wages they deserve based on the time they put in.

“It is truly shameful that the folks that make this campus so beautiful are forced to survive on poverty wages,” Ramirez said. “What we’re saying is that it’s time to come to the table with a real solution and to offer workers a salary that is going to allow them to live with dignity and to give them the respect that they deserve.”

Students and faculty are stepping in to help USC custodians get their demands met. USC Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation (SCALE) member Sonia Iyer shares efforts made by faculty members and SCALE to help protect the workers.

Iyer, a fourth-year architecture student, said a Price School of Public Policy graduate student and staff member helped connect the student group with janitors.

“She, I believe, had been doing a lot of the work on her own,” Iyer said, “and just trying to sort of single-handedly connect these janitors to other places and outlets who would amplify their voices and [understand] what their needs are and at SCALE, we were really happy to step up and stand in solidarity with them.”

Iyer said that SCALE members organize resources, create signs and posters, and encourage other students on campus to support the custodial staff at USC in receiving fair wages and fair contracts. The organization also collaborates with other groups that represent workers such as UNITE HERE Local 11.

After working with SCALE, Iyer feels that not enough students are aware of the daily lives of custodians “and how hard they have to fight and struggle just to have a living wage.”

Since these workers are the ones maintaining campus cleanliness, Iyer believes that students should join the protests.

“I really believe that it’s our duty as students to stand with them and fight with them,” Iyer said.

Correction: On April 13, 2022 at 10:30 a.m., the story was edited to correctly identify the Price student and staff member.