Janitorial firm sues union over its tactics
In 2003, the Service Employees International Union brought its Justice for Janitors organizing campaign to Houston, eventually signing up 5,300 workers employed by janitorial service companies and scoring the first labor organizing victory in Houston in 25 years.
It was the first toehold in the South for the nation’s second-largest union, but it came only after a bitter fight that included demonstrations, boycotts, blocked traffic and pressured pension fund investors.
More than a decade later, the fight is still going on, this time in a Houston courtroom where one of the targets of the union’s campaign, Professional Janitorial Service, is pursuing a $10.5 million defa-
mation suit that alleges the SEIU engaged in a smear campaign to ruin the company’s reputation and business. The case turns on the question of whether the SEIU went too far in trying to gain members, and the outcome could affect how unions conduct organizing campaigns, which often involve the public shaming of companies and executives, as well as economic pressure.
Bill Bux, a labor and employment lawyer with Locke Lord in Houston, said it is remarkable that the case has survived pretrial motions and rulings and made it in front of a jury in Harris County district court. Under federal labor law, unions have great latitude on what they can say and do in organizing campaigns, he said. It takes an extreme amount of misconduct to prove defamation.
“Was it free speech?” asked Bux. Or was the conduct so outrageous and untrue that it crosses the line into defamation?
The case, first filed nine years ago, went to trial earlier this month, and is expected to continue for at least another two weeks. So far, union leaders and organizers have testified about the organizing drive and how the SEIU used allegations of labor violations to make the case that employees of Professional Janitorial Service needed union protection. Later this week, company officials are expected to testify.
John Zavitsanos, the Houston lawyer representing Professional Janitorial Service, has focused on whether union officials knowingly spread false information, including allegations of wage and hour violations after federal investigators had cleared the company.
The union, however, said its aggressive tactics were needed to counter Professional Janitorial Service’s intimidation of workers, which included firing employees involved in organizing efforts.
“With this retaliatory lawsuit, (Professional Janitorial Service) have crafted an anti-union smear campaign in an attempt to interfere with workers’ freedom of speech and right to unionize,” union spokeswoman Paloma Martinez said in statement.
Bewildered bystander
Professional Janitorial Service, a commercial cleaning company in Houston, found itself a bewildered bystander in the fight to organize the janitors who cleaned Houston’s biggest downtown office buildings. The part-time janitors, mostly immigrant women, earned $5.30 an hour, 15 cents more than the minimum wage at the time.
The union focused its efforts on the five big commercial cleaners in the Houston market, companies with which it had negotiated contracts in other cities. The big players quickly vowed neutrality and agreed to recognize the union if more than 50 percent of their employees signed cards agreeing to be represented by the SEIU. It took four months for the union to gather enough signatures.
The public at first was sympathetic to the plight of the janitors, many of whom worked several jobs to support their families. Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza was a prominent supporter. But the tide of goodwill turned during contract negotiations when demonstrators, who often included more activists than janitors, staged sit-down protests in the middle of key intersections, handcuffing themselves together, and blocking traffic for hours.
After a year, the union had its first contract in Houston. Janitors pay rose nearly $1 an hour, or 18 percent, to $6.25.
The union, however, still had a problem. Union contractors were losing market share, falling from 72 percent to 68 percent, as Professional Janitorial Service picked up more work, according to a memo introduced into evidence at trial. If the union share dropped below 60 percent, contractors had the right to reopen the contract and the union stood to lose what it already negotiated.
The union needed to organize Professional Janitorial Service, the sixth biggest company in the market, which had contracts to clean nearly 8 million square feet nightly. A union memo laid out the company’s vulnerabilities, noting that its five biggest clients accounted for more than half of the company’s total revenue and that the union’s connections with pension funds, which invest in commercial real estate, could be leveraged to put pressure on the cleaning company.
Union officials went after those contracts, pressing then-Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, to change cleaning companies at buildings owned by Michigan’s retirement system.
‘Yeaaaaaa!!’
By 2007, SEIU took credit for getting more than a dozen buildings to drop Professional Janitorial Service in favor of union companies, according to an email that went to top union officials. One email from a union organizer started with “great news” that two buildings on the West Loop would no longer be cleaned by PJS. “Yeaaaaaa!!”
SEIU officials frequently reminded union cleaning companies that they benefited from its efforts to drive out their nonunion competitor. “Are you bidding on this?” one SEIU official asked a union contractor, when passing along news that a downtown building was looking to replace Professional Janitorial Service.
The union tried to get Professional Janitorial Service to recognize the union as the bargaining agent for its 486 workers if organizers obtained a majority of signatures from employees. Company officials insisted on a secret ballot election, as allowed by law. No election was ever held.
The union also had difficulties turning out Professional Janitorial Service workers for protest rallies. One union report introduced at trial referred to the organizing effort as “cold.”
Professional Janitorial Service sued the union for defamation in 2007 after union leaders accused the company of violating federal labor laws by forcing janitors to work off the clock and firing employees for organizing activities. Union leaders detailed the allegations in letters and meetings with building owners and managers, as well as pension funds and hedge funds that owned the properties, according to the lawsuit and courtroom testimony.
By July 2006, however, the Labor Department had cleared Professional Janitorial Service from wrongdoing. Two months later, the National Labor Relations Board dismissed charges that several Professional Janitorial Service employees had been fired for union activity.
Professional Janitorial Service CEO Brent Southwell won’t comment, and so far there has been no effort to settle the case. “We believe the union’s objective was and continues to be to kill PJS,” said Zavitsanos, the lawyer for the company.
Professional Janitorial Service estimated that it has lost at least $5.5 million in business from the union campaign, Zavitsanos said. He said much of the evidence that backs up his claim comes from the union itself, including the congratulatory memos and emails that took credit for making PJS lose more clients.
“It’s almost like the Jerry Lewis telethon,” said Zavitsanos. “They set a goal and said, ‘Let’s go for the rest.’ ”