Linda Watson, one of your neighbors here in Cincinnati, is having a hard time making it. I thought you'd want to know. Maybe we can do something to help.
The issue is this: Watson works and works hard -- but she's not making a living. And she's just one of millions.
Watson moved here 17 years ago when she got married. Working mostly as a housekeeper, she raised five children. Now she lives alone with her grandson, who recently came to live with her while he studies at Western Hills High School.
"I'm trying to give him some guidance," she says. "Trying to keep him on the right path."
Watson works in the Chemed Building at Fifth and Sycamore streets downtown. Four hours a day she cleans the offices, conference rooms, hallways, toilets; she makes the place shine.
"ABM pays me $7 an hour," she says. "That's $28 a day. I make $7 an hour, no health benefits, no vacation time, no sick time."
Health benefits and sick time are issues for Watson, because like millions of Americans she has health problems.
"I have asthma, and I'm diabetic and insulin dependent," she says. "If I buy my medicine, by the time I pay for my medication there's nothing left."
Watson, believing that it isn't right to work hard only to remain poor, joined the janitors' movement, Justice for Janitors. On April 17, with 100 other janitors and their supporters, she marched through Over-the-Rhine into the city business district to call for an end to poverty wages.
"I'm not asking anybody to give me anything," she says. "I get up and go to work every day, and I think I deserve a fair wage, a living wage."
The problem of low-wage workers has become a national issue, an American scandal. They are the workers in the kitchen, the hotel cleaning ladies, the university groundskeeper and the federal government secretary. More often than not they are women. Working and poor.
The problem doesn't just affect Watson. It affects her family, her community, our entire city.
"There's a growing divide in Cincinnati between the well off and working poor," says Matt Ryan, an organizer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which organizes janitors. "Nowhere is that more apparent then when standing on Central Parkway between Over-the-Rhine and the Central Business District. We marched down Vine Street to say that our neighborhoods cannot move forward without good jobs.
"Unfortunately, corporations like Convergys and Western & Southern are not hearing that message. Janitors like Linda working in their headquarters earn as little as $28 a day. Convergys and Western & Southern hire contractors such as Blue Chip and EMS, who deny those workers the right to join the Justice for Janitors campaign. They deny those janitors the right to bargain for living wages and access to affordable healthcare.
"What's most frustrating is that Convergys and Western & Southern have no problem asking taxpayers for support. Convergys received over $52 million in tax subsidies. W&S is now asking for $21 million to help build luxury condos downtown. Yet when the community -- workers, faith groups and neighborhood leaders -- asks Convergys and Western & Southern to give back and address priorities like good jobs for our city, they do nothing."
The issues that the janitors are raising here in Cincinnati are not only local issues but also national and even global. While corporations have grown rich, workers' wages have stagnated for decades. Today millions of American workers are like Watson -- part-time or temporary workers, contract workers or day laborers. The Government Accounting Office says 29 percent of all workers are contingent; the Bureau of Labor Standards, with another definition, says 5 percent. But in any case it's millions. Workers like these lack job security, often have low wages and frequently have no benefits.
Women workers, whether they are contingent workers or those with permanent full-time jobs, make up a large part of the low-wage workforce. Almost 40 percent of all women are low-wage workers. While 47 percent of the workforce is female, some 59 percent of all low-wage workers are women. Women workers have gotten the short end of the stick.
A recent study by the U.S. Census Bureau reports that income inequality is associated with increased mortality below age 65. That is, in states where people's incomes are more unequal, more people under 65 die. Low wages for some in a society where others are wealthy is bad for our health, all of our health, be we rich or poor.
I know something about this. When I was a boy of 11 my mother divorced, moved to another city and for a couple of years my family fell into poverty. My mother worked part-time as a barmaid, then a bakery clerk. Finally Mom got a job as a grocery clerk. It was a union job, a full-time job with health benefits. For more than 20 years she rang up the groceries, put the stuff in the bag. She fell into poverty, but then she worked her way out.
That's all Watson wants, a chance to work herself out of poverty. She believes that between the building owners, their tenants and the cleaning contractors, there ought to be money to pay a living wage and to cover workers' health care. And she's right.
The Justice for Janitors campaign deserves our support. ABC, Blue Chip, EMS and the rest of the janitorial companies ought to do right. Recognize the union. Negotiate a contract. Pay a living wage.
If you live or work in one of those downtown buildings, ask your boss, "What company cleans our offices? Do they pay the workers a living wage?" If they don't, ask them why. Tell your boss, "We don't want any more poverty wages in Cincinnati. It's not good for our city. It's not good for our community. It's not good for America."
Most important perhaps, it's not good for Linda Watson.
Dan La Botz is a writer, teacher and activist. His column appears the fourth issue of each month.
