Word: unicco
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...largest cleaning company in Boston, and the most intransigent in its opposition to the janitors’ demands, is UNICCO. It employs over half of the 10,000 janitors currently seeking a new contract. Although six contractors have signed an interim agreement with the janitors that would give them health care and full-time work, UNICCO remains openly defiant, employing hundreds of replacement workers as strikebreakers and continuing an ad campaign aimed at discrediting the janitors and their union. UNICCO is widely despised by Boston janitors for their abusive employment practices...
Harvard has many ties to UNICCO. Harvard is a tenant in a number of buildings cleaned by UNICCO. Harvard is also a major landowner in the Greater Boston area, and owns a number of buildings cleaned by UNICCO Most importantly, over 400 janitors at Harvard are employed by UNICCO, making them the largest subcontractor on campus. As such, UNICCO and Harvard deserve much of the responsibility for the horrendous decline in wages and benefits Harvard janitors saw in the mid-to-late 1990s. The Living Wage Campaign was formed in response to Harvard’s willingness to use companies...
Although at Harvard UNICCO now pays higher wages to its janitors, wages equivalent to those earned by Harvard’s direct employees, Harvard still plays a role in supporting UNICCO’s exploitative practices by continuing its contract with it. UNICCO can continue its exploitative practices only due to the support of institutions like Harvard, which provide it with capital through contracts...
...there is growing pressure on UNICCO to agree to the janitors’ demands. Two weeks ago, Acting Governor Jane Swift announced that UNICCO will lose its contract to clean the State House if it does not meet the janitors’ demands. Earlier in the strike, the California Public Employees’ pension fund decided to terminate UNICCO’s contract in a Boston building which it is part-owner, and it is considering doing the same in two Washington buildings where it is majority owner...
Harvard must use its extensive ties with UNICCO to pressure the company to agree to the janitors’ reasonable demands. Harvard should recognize that health care is a human right that must be provided by employers. If UNICCO refuses, then Harvard has an obligation to cut its contract with UNICCO. As was negotiated in the Harvard janitors’ contract last winter, all janitors would retain their jobs were this to happen. The practice of subcontracting is generally harmful to workers, and it has always been a demand of the Living Wage Campaign that Harvard discontinue this practice. Rather...