Last year, more than 5,000 janitors in Houston decided to form a union, giving organized labor one of its biggest victories ever in the South.
But now the janitors are locked in a new struggle. They have gone on strike because five Houston cleaning companies have rejected their proposal for a salary increase to $8.50 an hour, up from the current average of $5.25 an hour.
The companies say the proposal for a 62 percent increase, along with health insurance, is unrealistic.
The janitors, who generally work four hours a day, say they are merely asking for enough to support their families.
The tensions, and the theatrics, intensified sharply yesterday as the union’s supporters blocked a main thoroughfare in front of the Galleria mall, staging a sit-in that led to the arrest of 12 people. For nearly two hours, the group blocked Post Oak Boulevard, just outside a Neiman Marcus store, with the police seeming confused about how to handle the situation.