Miami janitor's strike

Several have blogged about this; I'll pass along a post from Nathan Newman:

Janitors who clean offices at the University of Miami went on strike today to demand a decent wage for their families.

And who is President of the University of Miami?

Donna Shalala, Clinton's director of the Health and Human Services, who claimed in a recent interview to have "spent much of her public career as an advocate for the poor" but won't stand up for the working poor working at the university over which she presides.

Most of these janitors, who service both the Coral Gables campus and Jackson Memorial Hospital, work for Boston-based UNICCO, a commercial facilities services company that operates in malls, universities, and office buildings across the country. Although UNICCO staff at schools such as Harvard earn between $13 and $14 an hour and have fully paid health insurance, janitors at UM sites earn as little as $6.33 an hour, and are not provided with health insurance for themselves or their families.

The Orlando Sentinel has more on the strike.

Why don't you all call Donna Shalala and ask her to be a responsible community leader and require that UNICCO workers who clean the University's campus get paid a decent wage. Call her at (305) 284-5155.

One interesting item from the Orlando Sentinel piece is how students have allied with the workers, even realizing when it may hurt their bottom line:

Members of STAND also said they are undeterred by a possible outcome of their activism: Should the workers win a living wage, it's likely that UM tuition, already $38,000 a year with room and board, would rise.

"I have thought about that," said sophomore Veronica Seder, 19. "But honestly, if it comes down to that, it's a small price to pay for justice."