ACORN/SEIU/JUSTICE FOR JANITORS reportback? : Houston Indymedia

1. ACORN ANNOUNCEMENT (ACORN is Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)

MINIMUM WAGE IS NOT ENOUGH!

No one can raise a family on $5.15 an hour with no health insurance!

Be a part of this historic event to support the

Justice for Janitors Campaign

We are fighting to win

LIVING WAGE JOBS in Houston!!

Join forces with ACORN, SEIU, janitors and all other low wage workers to fight for everyone’s right to have:

Living Wages
Benefits
Health Insurance
Vacation Pay
Respect on the Job
Bring your family, your friends and your co-workers –
Living Wage jobs affects all of us!

Saturday April 30, 2005

1:00pm

George R. Brown Convention Center

Free bus Transportation provided downtown and back

Meet at 12:00 PM any of the following locations for bus transportation:

Acres Homes: St. Monica’s Church 8421 W. Montgomery 77088 Fifth Ward: Church of Nazareth 3902 Brewster 77026 Third Ward: Shape Community Center (Live Oak & Alabama) 77004 North Side/ Heights: Christ the King 4419 N. Main 77009 North Forest: Light House Missionary Baptist Church 9707 N. Wayside 77078 Spring Branch: Holy Cross Church Wirt & Long Point 77055 Villa del Sol Apartments 4000 Hollister Shady Village Mobile Home Park 5711 Yale Shrine Bookstore: 5309 Martin Luther King 77021

Call ACORN to reserve your seat on the bus and ACORN t-shirt for the rally!

(713) 868-7015

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2. SEIU ANNOUNCEMENT (SEIU is Service Employees International Union)

April 30th is the beginning of the campaign Justice for Janitors

to seek Justice, Dignity and Respect

for all Janitors working in commercial buildings in Houston

Join us for this historic event to achieve:

Just Wages!

Health Care!

Benefits!

RESPECT & DIGNITY

George R Brown Convention Center

1001 Avenida de las Americas

Saturday, April 30, 2005

1:00 pm

For more information call 713.514.0005

Community, Religious, and Elected Leaders in Houston are Uniting To Win...

Justice for Janitors

The 8,000 janitors who clean Houston’s office buildings are paid less than $11,000 a year and do not have access to affordable health care. Nearly the entire workforce is part-time and janitors report they frequently are exploited on the job. Like janitors in most major cities, nearly all Houston janitors are immigrants, working hard and paying taxes, but forced to live in poverty by their employers, most of which are national corporations.

Houston janitors are uniting to form a union with SEIU to win just wages, affordable family health care, full time work, and better treatment on the job.

Janitors Joining the Fight for Affordable Health Care for All Working People in Houston

Houston is in the midst of a severe health care crisis that is putting a major financial strain on workers, businesses, taxpayers, and public budgets. One in four Houstonians – about 1 million city residents – do not have health insurance.

The janitors’ organizing campaign is joining the ongoing community-wide efforts of ACORN, TMO, and others to improve access to secure, affordable health care for all working people in Houston.

In other cities across the country, SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign has been working closely with community and religious organizations, fighting the tide of rising health care costs -- and winning. At a time when employers are forcing workers to pay more of the cost of health care, community support is helping SEIU janitors in other major cities win contracts that maintain and even expand employer-paid health coverage, helping to ease the burden of health costs on taxpayers and public budgets; in Boston, for example, family health coverage extends to part-time janitors and even includes vision and dental care.

About Justice for Janitors and SEIU

For two decades, SEIU’s Justice for Janitors movement has helped low-wage workers achieve social and economic justice and earn broad-based support from the public as well as religious, political and community leaders. More than 200,000 janitors in more than 28 cities throughout the United States have united in SEIU (Service Employees International Union), America’s largest union of building services workers. Please visit our website at http://www.justiceforjanitors.org.

For more information, contact Adriana Cadena at 713-514-0005 or cadenaa@seiu1.org