Welcome to A New England that Works for Everyone!

A booming real estate industry needs to take responsibility

With more than $10 billion dollars in total sales last year, the Boston commercial real estate market is hot! The Hancock Tower sold twice in two weeks, each time at a higher price! Average asking rents have shot up astronomically in the past 3 years. Explosive increases in downtown Boston have pushed rents to from $47 per square foot 6 months ago to $64 per square foot today, up 100% since 2003.

“It’s a landlord’s market,” said Ronald K. Perry, executive vice president at Meredith & Grew quoted in Banker and Tradesman. “Building sales have been occurring at a record clip, putting upward pressure on rents.”

In Boston and New England, we are now part of the national and global economy. Just as once locally-owned Gillette is now owned by Proctor & Gamble and Bank of Boston/Fleet is now owned by North Carolina-based Bank of America, the real estate and property services industry is no longer owned and controlled locally. Our real estate owners are from Chicago, New York, or LA. Unicco the largest local cleaning contractor, based in Newton with almost 4000 employees in New England, has just been sold to an Australian firm for almost half billion dollars. Money is being made and flowing out of our region. Our campaign calls on the real estate industry to invest in the communities where it operates.

While janitors and security officers may seem invisible, imagine how the daily operations of most businesses would stop if they weren’t there to clean, maintain, and protect New England’s buildings. The work these men and women provide is valuable. They should be given respect not only in how they are treated, but in how they are compensated.

Time to close the growing divide

A new study from the Carsey Institute at University of New Hampshire shows that “New England has the highest increase in income disparity in the country”. The workers who clean, scrub, maintain, and secure our office, university, mall and industrial buildings are facing a rapid decline in wages, benefits and overall quality of life.

In the first regional contract bargaining since the 2002 janitor strike, janitors are in a struggle for decent wages, more hours of work and health insurance. They need sick days, job security, and dignity and respect at work. Good jobs and opportunities for janitors in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire will make New England and our neighborhoods stronger.

One obstacle janitors face is the overwhelming number of part-time jobs and the few openings for full-time work. The great majority of janitors are only offered part-time work—usually no more than 4 hours and in the suburbs just 3 ½ hours. At the current downtown Boston wage of $12.95, these workers are making just over $13,000 a year—just $1100 a month. Janitors in the suburbs and Providence do even worse, making between $9,300 and $10,500. Most janitors must piece together a living on 2 or 3 part-time jobs, and even so, are eligible for public assistance.

The real estate industry is booming, yet because few service workers in this industry receive health insurance coverage, many janitors and security officers must rely on the state to receive adequate health care for their families. Under the new law requiring that everyone have insurance, most janitors earn so little they will be eligible for public subsidy. Now, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is subsidizing the multi-billion dollar real estate industry by providing its workers with the bulk of their health coverage. With the new law, that subsidy will increase.

"Like many immigrant parents, I feel frustrated and full of sadness. I can’t support my family on one job. I need to work day and night. My children and many other young people don’t get the attention they need from their parents. So they are in the streets and can get into trouble."
–Carlos Vargas

Compare what janitors make to the Massachusetts Self-Sufficiency Standard in 2003 of $44,046 for one adult with one pre-school child and $54,612 for a two-parent family with two children.
For a full-time janitor, rent would take a whopping 62% of his or her gross income! A part-time janitor can’t even afford to rent a 2-bedroom apartment.

As Zanoris Perez says:

"Right now, I feel like I have to get a second job so we can at least get by. Getting a second job means I can't be in my daughter's life the way I want to. I’m not expecting to get rich, I just want to have one job, go to school, and take care of my family, so we can live ok. Not perfect, not poor, just ok."

Short part-time hours are not necessary. Boston is one of the few markets left that allows short part-time scheduling. Cities such as Houston, Denver, and Washington DC have all created more opportunities for workers to add more hours and move to 1 good, full-time job, instead of 3 part-time jobs.

“We all end up leaving our kids home alone, or paying someone to watch them while we’re at work. And the worst result is that when the kids become teens, they may be steered wrong, since there are all kinds of dangers in our neighborhood: drugs, alcohol, gangs. We run the risk in many places of losing our children.”
- Ricardo Monroy

Read Ricardo Monroy's whole statement.

It is the neighborhoods and communities in which janitors live that pay the price.

We call for a responsible real estate industry.