The strike by Los Angeles janitors has been a peculiar one, involving not just the typical rallies and walkouts but also videos posted on YouTube, workers who are still largely on the job and now a cooling-off period brokered by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a onetime labor organizer.
The janitors union agreed Thursday to resume contract talks during a meeting with Villaraigosa, one day after they voted to authorize a strike and staged spot walkouts at locations across the county.
The janitors also agreed to scrap plans for more walkouts during the negotiations with cleaning contractors. Contract talks are expected to continue into the weekend.
Calling it a "fruitful meeting," Villaraigosa said that "ultimately, it's in all of our best interests to find a fair and fast resolution that protects the working families and meets the needs of businesses in L.A."
Negotiations between the janitors and cleaning contractors broke down early Wednesday, a week after the previous contract expired. That contract was negotiated in 2003.
Within hours, union members overwhelmingly authorized a strike and began staging walkouts at about 40 buildings, including properties owned by Douglas Emmett Inc. and Maguire Properties Inc.
Only about 450 of the union's 6,000 Los Angeles County janitors, or less than 10%, walked off the job, said Mike Garcia, president of Service Employees International Union Local 1877. The janitors work primarily at commercial office buildings.
A strike in which most workers keep working isn't quite by the book, but such a strategy fits well with this union's history of creative tactics, said Harley Shaiken, a professor at UC Berkeley who specializes in labor issues.
Dozens of janitors crashed a Cinco de Mayo party thrown by the Building Owners and Managers Assn. on Wednesday night, chanting, "We're on strike, let the rich people clean." Afterward, the union posted video of the rally on YouTube. By posting the clip, Shaiken said, the union created "a virtual picket line."
"What we're seeing now is innovative and different, but it didn't appear yesterday," Shaiken said. "This is a union that's been strategically very savvy from when it first began organizing janitors, particularly immigrant janitors. It's raised a lot of issues and it's tended to be quite effective."
