Window washers "overwhelmingly" ratified a three-year labor contract that would raise wages by up to 16 percent over the life of the agreement, the union said Wednesday.

"It's a good step but it's not the end," said Tom Balanoff, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 1.

Balanoff said the agreement, which covers 235 window washers, was reached last week and averted a strike. The union negotiated with Corporate Cleaning Services and seven other companies that bargained together in a coalition.

The workers, who now make from $11.15 to $17.65 per hour, will earn as much as $20.50 by the end of the contract, Balanoff said. The contract also calls for employers to pay 60 percent of health care insurance premiums, rather than a set amount, meaning companies will share cost increases with workers.

Despite those wins, a point system workers sought to end was expanded and could be used by all eight companies. Under the system, a worker gets a set amount of points, or hours, to clean a building's windows. If the window washers finish the work early, the company pays them commission. But if they work beyond the time allowed, they don't get any additional pay. Workers felt the system forced them to rush and take shortcuts, often at the expense of safety.

More at source: Chicago Tribune

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A Winnipeg woman is accusing a local cleaning company of firing her when she was pregnant and needed time off for medical appointments.

The Manitoba Human Rights Commission argued her case against Cindy Dayman, owner of Take Time Cleaning and Lifestyle Services, before an adjudication hearing Thursday. 

Andrea Szabo alleged Dayman fired her after she revealed on a company health form that she was pregnant. She complained her medical appointments weren't accommodated. The Commission's legal counsel argued Dayman violated the Human Rights Code. 

"There's nothing to indicate pregnancy was a factor," Dayman countered. 

Cleaning complaints

Three customers complained about her cleaning services and it was a final, serious complaint that led to Szabo's termination, according to Dayman.

Szabo said it was "outside of her comfort zone" to bring a complaint against Dayman. 

"It was not an easy decision for me to go ahead with my complaint,"  Szabo told adjudicator Robert Dawson at the hearing. "I was very shocked to lose my job at four months pregnant."  

Szabo began cleaning for the company in June 2012. She signed a health and availability form at the time and one of the questions asked if she was pregnant or planned to become pregnant. She checked off no.

Szabo asked for time off to go to medical appointments in the fall of 2012. Dayman said those requests violated a company policy stating cleaners needed have consistent availability. 

More at source: CBC

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I am pleased to announce the release of our new website, designed with a fresh new look and user-friendly mobile navigation, updated with the latest information about our members products and services. We hope you will enjoy our new site. If you have any questions, comments or suggestion please send them my way.

Thank You, 

Matthew Carson | Administrator |  IJCSA

The labor protest movement that fast-food workers in New York City began nearly three years ago has led to higher wages for workers all across the country. On Wednesday, it paid off for the people who started it.

A panel appointed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo recommended on Wednesday that the minimum wage be raised for employees of fast-food chain restaurants throughout the state to $15 an hour over the next few years. Wages would be raised faster in New York City than in the rest of the state to account for the higher cost of living there.

The panel’s recommendations, which are expected to be put into effect by an order of the state’s acting commissioner of labor, represent a major triumph for the advocates who have rallied burger-flippers and fry cooks to demand pay that covers their basic needs. They argued that taxpayers were subsidizing the workforces of some multinational corporations, like McDonald’s, that were not paying enough to keep their workers from relying on food stamps and other welfare benefits.

The $15 wage would represent a raise of more than 70 percent for workers earning the state’s current minimum wage of $8.75 an hour. Advocates for low-wage workers said they believed the mandate would quickly spur raises for employees in other industries across the state, and a jubilant Mr. Cuomo predicted that other states would follow his lead.

More at source: NY Times

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I don't wear dentures, but I have worn a retainer, which I cleaned with Efferdent. The experience was valuable not just for keeping my teeth straight, but also for educating me on the wonders of denture cleaner.

After seeing how well the effervescent tablets cleaned tiny nooks, I started experimenting on other tough-to-clean items; believe it or not, they are great for cleaning the rubber casings on my earbuds. 

Trust me, these tablets are amazing at cleaning hard-to-reach spots, and they're cheap: 120 tablets of Efferdent costs less than $9, and the generic version is even cheaper. Check out five surprising ways to use denture cleaner around the house.

1. Clean the toilet. Drop two or three tablets into the bowl, let them sit for 10 to 15 minutes, then give it a scrub.
2. Remove burnt food. Get rid of the browned bits on your Pyrex by soaking the dishes in denture cleaner and warm water for half an hour to an hour. Follow with dish soap as usual.
3. Remove stains on ceramic. Whether it's a coffee-stained cup or a stem-stained vase, fill it with water, drop in a tablet, and let it soak for 15 minutes.
4. Unclog a drain. Break up a denture tablet (or several) so the pieces fall into the drain trap, then run hot water down the drain.
5. Clean tea kettles, coffee carafes, and thermoses. Get rid of the stains and mineral deposits on metal-lined carafes by filling one with water, dropping in two tablets, and leaving it overnight. Then clean thoroughly with soap and water.

Have you tried any of these? Found any other uses for denture-cleaning tablets?

Scrubbing behind the fridge isn't exactly sexy, but it could be good business for Google.

The tech giant has hired the engineering team from the soon-to-be defunct Homejoy, a start-up which allowed you to book home cleaners online and is set to close July 31. That has raised speculation that Google will be looking to start providing things like referrals to electricians and plumbers.

"What Google did here was they apparently hired part of the engineering staff of Homejoy. It was successful. People liked it but they are being forced to shut down partially because of the same issues that plagued Uber in terms of who's an employee, who's a contractor," CNET senior editor Dan Ackerman told CBS News. "So, they saw an opportunity to pick up almost a readymade chunk of services that can add to their site."

Ackerman said the move makes sense, even as Google has said it is looking to cut costs in the face of strong second quarter earnings on Thursday. The strong results sent Google's stock skyrocketing and its market capitalization, already around $403 billion, rose some $65 billion to finish at $468.3 billion on Friday.

"I think it's much more of a bread and butter issue than let's say inventing virtual reality glasses to just kind of give people referrals to local contractors in their neighborhood," he said. "If you go on Google Now and you search for restaurants or anything on Google Maps, you can often get a lot of that information pulled right into Google. You don't have to leave the site and it's sort of the same thing."

Ackerman said the expansion into home services wouldn't be so much about generating revenue as "being sort of a one-stop shop, keeping you from leaving that kind of Googlesphere and going somewhere else."

They are the latest big tech company, following Amazon, to show an interest in this space.

"I suppose they could eventually charge for placement of ads or give you a better response if you are one of their signed up contractors," he said. "But I don't think they are looking to make money from this right now."

It also fits in nicely with what Google does so well.

"What is Google's mission statement? It's to take the world's information and organize it and present it to you," he said. "This kind of stays within that because you go to Google to search for stuff. They are saying, hey, here is a plumber, electrician right here. You don't have to go to some other website."

Source: CBS

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Homejoy — an on-demand home cleaning startup — announced today that it will shut down at the end of the month. Homejoy CEO Adora Cheung said that the company had failed to secure the additional funding it needed to continue operations, and attributed that to recent lawsuits that sought to reclassify its contract workers as employees.

When it launched three years ago, Homejoy was one of the first on-demand startups to enter the home services space. It operated in 35 cities in the US, Canada, UK, Germany and France, according to its farewell blog post. But it faced touch competition from similar services like Handy and, more recently, from tech giants like Amazon, in addition to a wave of lawsuits over the classification of it`s workers. 

Closing shop puts an end to rumors that the company was to be acquired. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in late May that the company was up for sale, and had been operating at significant losses. In addition, reports suggested that Handy was interested in buying the company.

Homejoy will formally cease operations on July 31.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle 

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A Houston resident filed a lawsuit against a janitorial business alleging negligence in 2013.

Kay Leftwich Dohanyos filed a complaint against ABM Janitorial Services and South Central Inc. in the Houston Division of the Southern District of Texas on July 2, claiming liability in an August 2013 fall on a wet restroom floor that the suit states permanently rendered the victim unable to work.

According to the suit, the defendant was contracted to perform custodial services in the Continental/United flight attendants’ lounge at George Bush International Airport in Houston. The complaint states that ABM was negligent in failing to keep the premises, including the women’s restroom, in a safe condition.

Dohanyos, a United Airlines employee, contends that she was injured when stepping on a wet restroom floor that an ABM employee had just mopped. The plaintiff avers that there were no warning signs or barriers to let patrons know of the floor’s condition. She alleges personal injuries, including a torn rotator cuff requiring surgery, resulting in chronic pain, reduced range of motion, and limited physical ability, prohibiting her from continuing to work.

The plaintiff avers physical impairment and disfigurement, loss of earning capacity, anguish, medical expenses, and loss of enjoyment of life. She seeks in excess of $75,000 in compensation for damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, attorney’s fees, expenses, and costs. 

Dohanyos is represented by Jan Woodward Fox and Cameron Weir in Houston.

Houston Division of the Southern District of Texas case number 4:15-cv-01899.

Source: Texas Record

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The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Crothall Services Group Inc. in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia Thursday for failing to keep proper employment records.

The suit said that Crothall, a nationwide janitorial and facilities management services company based in Wayne, routinely assessed applicants' criminal backgrounds in making hiring decisions.

Federal law requires employers to keep records that show whether the use of criminal background checks or any other selection test, ends up causing discrimination in the hiring process.

Thursday's suit stems from a 2010 EEOC investigation into Crothall's hiring practices. When subpoenaed for their records, the company didn't produce any, the suit said. The EEOC wants the court to order Crothall to maintain and produce employment records.

Source: Philly.com 

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Detained Immigrants Sue Over Getting $1 a Day for Work

Immigrants who were detained at a suburban Denver facility while they awaited deportation proceedings are suing the private company that held them, alleging they were paid $1 a day to do janitorial work, sometimes under threat of solitary confinement.

They scrubbed toilets, mopped and swept floors, did laundry, and prepared and served meals, among other duties, according to attorneys who filed the lawsuit in October on behalf of nine current and former detainees.

U.S. District Court Judge John L. Kane declined a request Monday from Florida-based GEO Group Inc. to dismiss the claims against the company, allowing the federal lawsuit to proceed.

GEO is one of the largest contractors with the federal government for the detention of immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally or legal permanent residents with criminal records who face deportation. The company has denied wrongdoing and said in court documents the work is voluntary and it is abiding by federal guidelines in paying $1 a day.

Attorneys for the immigrants say they'll move to expand the case by seeking class-action status. They say the judge's ruling clears the way to gather more information from GEO through discovery proceedings about how many detainees were put to work.

The attorneys said they have heard from clients for years that immigrants labor for almost nothing at private detention facilities around the country, but they called the lawsuit filed in Colorado the first of its kind.

"It's their job to run the facility, and instead they used and abused us to run the facility, and that's why we're suing," said plaintiff Alejandro Menocal, 53. Menocal is a legal permanent resident who was detained for three months at GEO's Aurora facility while facing deportation last fall.

GEO responded in a statement that its facilities "provide high-quality services in safe, secure and humane residential environments, and our company strongly refutes allegations to the contrary."

The company says attorneys and immigrant advocates have full access to its facilities that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts with, and they're routinely audited and inspected by the government.

Anita Sinha, a faculty member at Washington College of Law, American University who has researched immigrant labor at private detention centers, said Congress set the daily wage in 1950 and it hasn't been adjusted for inflation.

She said on a daily basis, immigrants facing deportation occupy about 34,000 beds nationally in private and government-run facilities. More than 60 percent of the beds are in privately held facilities, she said.

The company succeeded in getting the judge to dismiss a claim that it violated Colorado'sminimum wage law because detainees were paid $1 a day instead of $8.23 an hour. In tossing that claim, Kane said the detainees do not qualify as employees under state law.

But he said the lawsuit could proceed on the allegations that GEO unjustly profited from the detainees and violated the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which prohibits forced labor.

"Legally, this is a big step forward," said Hans Meyer, Menocal's attorney.

It's common for inmates at state or privately run prisons to work below minimum wage, in some cases for the purpose of gaining job training.

"The difference here is that these are civil immigration detainees who are not being held for any criminal violation," said Brandt Milstein, another attorney in the lawsuit.

Menocal, a Mexican immigrant from Baja California, was released in September and kept his legal resident status after his attorney won his case. He said he faced deportation proceedings last year when authorities learned after a traffic stop that he had a criminal record from 2010 for driving with a suspended license and having his wife's prescription painkillers in his car.

He pleaded guilty and served a year of probation soon after, but he didn't come to the attention of immigration authorities at the time.

The lawsuit focuses only on the GEO's suburban Denver facilities, but the American Civil Liberties Union said the claims are similar to allegations they have heard around the country.

"There is a name for locking people up and forcing them to do work without paying real wages. It's called slavery," said Carl Takei, staff attorney at the national prison project of the ACLU.

The monetary amount the lawsuit seeks hasn't been determined.

Source: ABC

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