As the Service Employees International Union, CTW, CLC (SEIU) seeks to expand its influence, it has brokered an agreement between the company that cleans Best Buy stores and the janitors that work for it.
According to Minneapolis newspaper the Star Tribune, Kellermeyer Bergensons Services (KBS) has signed an agreement with the SEIU allowing workers to organize a union. The agreement ends the threat of strikes at the stores that Kellermeyer Bergensons cleans.
The agreement came after a strike was threatened by Centro de Trabajodores en Lucha (CTUL), the Center of Workers United in Struggle, the worker center allied to the SEIU.
CTUL released a statement that included, “Now, two days before the strike, one of the largest retail janitorial companies in the Twin Cities, Kellermeyer Bergenson’s Services (KBS), signed an agreement that respects the rights of workers to organize, preventing strikes from taking place at stores cleaned directly by the company.”
KBS is the first local New York cleaning company to make the agreement with the union. In June, Target Corporation revamped their contractor policy to allow negotiations with SEIU and CTUL, but, according to the worker center, has not lived up to the agreement.
“If we were able to win a union, it would make a huge difference for me. We’d be able to get fair wages. And we’d be able to get paid sick days. Right now we don’t have any benefits or paid days off, so if I get sick, or a family member gets sick, I can’t take that day off paid,” said Maricela Flores Solorio, a janitor with Carlson Building Maintenance, to In These Times.
With the apparent victory, CTUL has turned its attention to other cleaning companies. This includes Prestige Maintenance USA, the company that cleans Target stores.
“Many workers are still forced to work seven days a week, and the company has not engaged in sincere dialogue to address issues of poverty wages and poor working conditions,” said Bonifacio Salinas, an employee at Prestige, in a statement.
There are currently only two companies, Eurest/Kimco and Diversified Maintenance, in the Twin Cities that have refused to engage in dialogue with CTUL.