Photo by Tara Monastesse ‘25.
Members of the Service Employees International Union's 32BJ chapter gathered in Cambridge's Galaxy Park last Saturday to march in support of a strong union contract for custodians.
By Tara Monastesse ’25
Managing Editor of Content
On Saturday, June 24, a large crowd of custodians and their supporters gathered in Cambridge’s Galaxy Park to advocate for a strong union contract on behalf of the Service Employees International Union’s 32BJ chapter. The ensuing march served as the kick-off event for SEIU’s ongoing campaign to negotiate a better contract for 32BJ janitors before the current one expires on November 15.
While the original march, planned for June 16, was canceled due to inclement weather, the rescheduled event last Saturday continued despite ongoing rain at its outset. Donning bright yellow rain ponchos bearing SEIU logos, the marchers chanted slogans in both English and Spanish, displaying union signs as they began their journey up Main Street shortly after noon.
Their path took them directly through the heart of Cambridge’s biotech center, home to many prominent biomedical research facilities owned by companies such as Novartis, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pfizer and Moderna. According to a press release issued by SEIU 32BJ, over 90 percent of commercially cleaned lab and office space in Boston and Cambridge is cleaned by members of the 32BJ union chapter.
Because laboratory settings can pose unique challenges to cleaners, getting companies to invest in trained custodians is important, according to SEIU 32BJ’s Assistant to the President Roxana Rivera. Rivera described the modern movement for janitors’ rights as being focused particularly on the struggles faced by janitors who are immigrants or who work as contracted employees. These workers have demonstrated in favor of liveable wages for several decades.
“... If you have good wages at the jobs, you know, you have more skilled workers cleaning,” Rivera said in an interview with Mount Holyoke News. “That is why we want to make sure that just because these are immigrant workers, and just because they're contracted out doesn't mean that they don't deserve safe working conditions or a voice on the job, and better pay … The only way we can do that is to be as public as possible.”
SEIU 32BJ calls itself the largest building service workers union in the United States, with approximately 20,000 members represented across Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Mount Holyoke College is one of many higher education institutions in Massachusetts whose service employees are represented by the union, alongside other colleges such as Northeastern University, Boston University and MIT. In a statement to MHN, the College clarified that the contract between SEIU and MHC was ratified on July 1, 2022, and is set to expire in June 2025.
Service workers at MHC will therefore be unaffected by the broader union contract’s expiration in November 2023. As previously reported by MHN, 32BJ members demonstrated on Mount Holyoke’s campus for better wages last July in anticipation of their contract being renewed.
The main challenges currently facing janitors are low wages and an inability to secure full-time positions, making it difficult for them to survive financially and secure healthcare, according to Rivera. SEIU 32BJ additionally estimates that approximately 200 of its members were lost to COVID-19, claiming in a press release that the rally would therefore “make plain how much these members have risked, and how much they matter to the local economy, which is one of the many reasons they deserve a new agreement that helps them keep up with soaring prices and maintains their family-sustaining benefits.”
Saturday’s march also commemorated the 33rd anniversary of Justice for Janitors Day, an annual observation created after a 1990 incident wherein the Los Angeles Police Department assaulted janitors striking for better wages and working conditions. According to SEIU 32BJ, “the reaction to the brutality of June 15, 1990 turned the tide in the janitors’ struggle to unionize, overcoming racism and the difficulty of organizing the employees of multiple contractors at isolated worksites across a large geography.” Demonstrations were held across the country by various SEIU chapters throughout the previous week in remembrance of the incident.
Photo by Tara Monastesse ‘25.
Saturday's march took SEIU 32BJ union members through Cambridge's biotech center, where companies such as Novartis and Pfizer maintain biomedical faciltiies.
“These essential workers are people [who], when universities closed down, administrators and professors went home — these men and women didn’t,” Marc McGovern, one of the three Cambridge City Council members present at the march, said in an interview with MHN. “Cambridge has a long tradition of supporting unions and supporting workers, and I'm proud of that. But we also need to make sure that the people doing business within Cambridge support those values as well.”
Following the march, union members convened in Jill Brown Rhone Park for a program that featured statements from Rivera and 32BJ union members, as well as Cambridge City Council members McGovern, Denise Simmons and Mike Connolly. Many speakers addressed the challenges that janitors faced during the pandemic as essential workers who remained on duty despite the health risks.
“Day after day, we had to show up. We showed up and worked, regardless of the risks. Regardless of the risk of bringing back an illness, during a pandemic, to our children and to our families,” Belkis Aristy, a custodian and speaker at the event, said through a translator. “Now today, companies do not want to recognize our sacrifices … The contract is set to expire in the coming months. This is our time.”
“You are the first to arrive at your workplaces and often the last to leave,” Councilor Simmons said. “During the pandemic, it was because of you that our economy kept moving forward. But too often, you are undervalued and underappreciated.”
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu also stopped in to provide a brief statement to the gathered crowd, wherein she offered her support to the gathered union members.
Rivera stated to MHN that SEIU 32BJ’s future plans for the contract campaign include a Labor Day demonstration that would initiate the official negotiation process.
“When you go to the bargaining table, all their current benefits are at risk,” Rivera said. “And so we have to make sure we protect what folks have, and fight for more.”