East Meadow, NY – At a hearing before the Nassau County Legislature’s Economic Development & Labor Committee, 32BJ members and officials testified that some cleaners on Long Island earn wages and benefits far below those workers in comparable real estate markets, including Westchester, New Jersey and Fairfield County, CT. More than 100 unionized Long Island janitors, as well as several non-union workers, attended the hearing, which was convened by Nassau County Legislator Dave Mejias (D- North Massapequa), chair of the committee.

"While Long Island’s commercial office vacancy rates are the lowest in the area and rents are competitive with other suburban markets, the Island’s commercial cleaners are not getting their fair share," said Shirley Aldebol, 32BJ Long Island District Supervisor. "These jobs should come with decent wages and health care as they do in Westchester, New Jersey and Connecticut."

Long Island commercial cleaners who are members of 32BJ earn a minimum of $9.75 per hour. But despite Long Island’s strong market, at buildings cleaned by contractors such as North Hills Office Services, Accolade, and Commercial Building Maintenance, workers earn as little as $7 per hour without meaningful health benefits. In addition to paying low wages, North Hills Office Services has repeatedly violated worker rights under federal law. Control Building Services, the company hired by Simon Property Group to clean their Smith Haven, The Source, Roosevelt Field and Walt Whitman malls, pays as little as $6.75 an hour and provides no meaningful benefits to their Food Court cleaners.

Compared to other markets, Long Island’s vacancy rate is a healthy 9.2 percent, twice as strong as Westchester and parts of New Jersey and Connecticut. Further, Class A office space asking rent per square foot on Long Island is a competitive $29.53. 32BJ contractors clean 70 percent of the market in New Jersey, with full time workers in Newark slated to earn at least $12.80 per hour by July 2007. 80 percent of Westchester and Fairfield County are cleaned by 32BJ contractors and Westchester full time workers will earn at least $11.50 per hour by July 2007.

"These low wage, no benefit jobs are bad for working families and bad for Long Island," said 32BJ Secretary-Treasurer Hector Figueroa in asking legislators to support efforts to raise wage and benefit standards in the janitorial industry. "Janitors can be treated fairly while still enabling building owners, contractors and developers to be competitive in the market. All of us have a responsibility to ensure Long Island is a place for working families to thrive, to succeed and to contribute."

Press Release