Labor's Gambit in Houston

On Thursday, protesters from around the country -- dubbed "freedom flyers" by the SEIU -- flew to Houston to join the janitors and to liken their struggle to the Boston Tea Party and the anti-slavery, civil rights and women's movements.

As in other cities, the union has organized the entire labor market, not just one cleaning company -- an approach that means no company would be put at a disadvantage by paying union wages and benefits. Its success, according to Stern, has knocked down the conventional wisdom that "you can't organize immigrants." Here, as in many cities, the cleaners are predominantly Latino and female.

The SEIU is facing some of the same adversaries it has battled in other cities because ownership of downtown real estate and building services is highly concentrated.

Here, as elsewhere, the union is applying pressure not only to cleaning contractors but to owners of the buildings where they clean because owners would absorb most of the cost of higher wages and benefits for janitors. Union supporters say the building owners -- Hines Interests, Crescent Real Estate, Brookfield Properties, Transwestern and P.M. Realty -- could end the strike tomorrow by giving cleaning contractors the go-ahead to meet the union's demands.

Among the demonstrators on Wednesday was Rene Ramirez, a lead cleaner in the Chevron Corp. headquarters whose job is to check up on janitors and carpet cleaners and to mix the chemicals used to wipe down restrooms and offices. He said he had continued working in the early days of the strike but changed his mind when he went to a weekly meeting with supervisors from the cleaning contractor GCA Services Group Inc.

Ramirez, who earns $7 an hour, said he pointed out that GCA janitors were making $5.15 an hour after three and four years on the job and needed a raise. He said the company representative answered, "If you don't like it, you can always leave and go somewhere else."

Flora Aguilar, 51, another striking janitor, was making $5.15 an hour after more than two years on the night crew for the cleaning contractor OneSource at the 55-floor Enterprise Plaza downtown. She was taking home $209 every two weeks, of which $20 went to bus fares. She said she had seen two managers fire women for refusing to stay past the end of their shift -- even though the women would have missed their last bus home.

There were indications in recent days that the union's campaign had produced some movement. Local officials said downtown business leaders were meeting unofficially with cleaning companies and the union, and the union, as a goodwill gesture, called off plans to picket the Sears Tower in Chicago.

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) said she made an impassioned plea to the Greater Houston Partnership, the voice of the business community, to press cleaning contractors to meet the janitors' demands.

"The image of a city standing against working people who are trying to elevate themselves is not an image that represents Houston," she said. "I'm not going to let my city be projected that way."

Russakoff reported from New York.