Published: December 30, 2007

About 1,800 office cleaners from Fairfield County avoided swapping their mops and brooms for pickets late Friday.

Three days before its strike deadline, the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ announced a tentative agreement with representatives from a group of cleaning companies in White Plains, N.Y. The deal affects about 4,000 office cleaners in Fairfield County and Westchester County, N.Y. The union's contract is slated to expire tomorrow.

The Local 32BJ negotiated a new four-year contract that will raise wages by $2 - a 19 percent increase - over the life of the contract and expands benefits for part-time workers, who will receive life insurance, a prescription drug plan and dental and optical insurance. Full-time workers will retain their full health care coverage.

Cleaners working in buildings larger than 400,000 square feet in White Plains and Stamford will be given full-time status by the end of the four-year contract.

"We didn't get it all, but we moved a lot" in the right direction, Local 32BJ Connecticut Director Kurt Westby said.

The unionized workers clean about 90 percent of large office space in downtown Stamford, according to Lynsey Kryzwick, communications coordinator for the union.

Westby led negotiations for the union and said the deal closed at about 9 p.m. Friday. The contract is tentative because it needs to be ratified with a vote by union members, which will come in the next two weeks, he said.

"It was hard bargaining, but it was respectful bargaining," Westby said of the negotiation process. "By no stretch of the imagination was it easy. It was tough. It went on for hours."

On Dec. 13, a group of Local 32BJ workers rallied on Atlantic Street during a snowstorm. Members unanimously voted to give their bargaining committee the power to strike after the demonstration.

Companies involved in the negotiations included American Building Maintenance, OneSource, Temco Services and UGL Unicco.

The cleaning companies' negotiations were led by Bob Tinsley, vice president of human resources and labor relations at American Building Maintenance, a facility services contractor based in California. Tinsley was out of the office yesterday and could not be reached for comment.

Leonel Arenas, a janitor in an Atlantic Street office employed by Quality Maintenance Inc., is one of the part-time workers making the switch to full-time under the new contract.

"This is very good because if we're able to have one full-time job, we don't have to have two or three part-time jobs to be able to support ourselves," Arenas said through a translator.

Westby said it is less expensive for cleaning companies to hire two or three part-time janitors rather than one full-time worker because of health care costs. Arenas said many office cleaners want full-time work, which is hard to find in Fairfield County in their profession.

"This a great opportunity not only for ourselves but also for our families," Arenas said "We'll be able to have more time with them or more time to go to school and give a better life to our families."