Maria Rodriguez has labored eight years as a janitor for a cleansing firm that providers Novartis, a world pharmaceutical firm headquartered in Cambridge.
The Ayer resident was considered one of greater than 100 janitors throughout Massachusetts rallied within the metropolis she works on Saturday, calling on space biotech firms to induce janitorial service contractors to deal with their workers higher.
Before the pandemic, Rodriguez was answerable for cleansing one flooring of the Novartis constructing, however now, she stated her job has grown to masking the basement and different areas as she tries to get by with fewer colleagues.
A high precedence from Rodriguez and different janitors is for his or her firms to shift their schedule from part-time to full-time, to allow them to begin receiving higher pay and advantages, comparable to elevated medical health insurance.
The 20 hours she works now will not be sufficient to fulfill her elevated work calls for, Rodriguez advised the Herald.
“We need justice, more respect for us,” she stated. “Maybe the company needs to be more conscientious because we are humans.”
Rally organizer 32BJ SEIU held Saturday’s occasion to start out getting consideration from biotech organizations, like Novartis, Pfizer and Biogen, earlier than janitors start negotiating for a brand new contract later this summer time. Their present contract expires in November.
The gathering honored Justice for Janitors day, when baton-wielding Los Angeles police assaulted janitors throughout a peaceable rally to enhance working circumstances and wages, in keeping with 32BJ SEIU. The response to the brutality of June 15, 1990 turned the tide within the janitors’ battle to unionize.
The union will cut price immediately with the janitorial service firms, making it important for biotech firms to face by the aspect of those that clear their buildings and labs, stated Roxana Rivera, assistant to the union’s president.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”