If you are making less than nine dollars an hour, is public protesting or going on strike even worth it? At what point do you figure out you have picked a less than stellar career? The O.C. Register reported today that 300 janitors marched through Santa Ana today demanding higher wages…and they make less than $9 an hour.
I grew up doing janitorial work with my dad. He owned a maintenance company. It was tough, dirty work. I didn’t like it one bit. And we worked nights. I spent many a weekend helping my dad. In that time we were exposed to powerful chemicals and noisy equipment. My dad ended up dying at the age of 61, of stomach cancer. Now we know that working nights and handling chemicals unsafely can do that to you. Back then it was just a way to make money.
One thing I learned early on was that without education I would get stuck doing that kind of work my entire life. Fortunately my father put me through some terrific schools and eventually I did finish college – and I returned for an MBA. Today I make more than double what I used to when I had only a bachelor’s degree.
The lesson is one I hope today’s janitors will figure out. They will never move up the socio-economic ladder as long as they are scrubbing toilets. They are going to have to go to night school, learn English, get a GED, and try to either learn a trade or maybe even get a degree, or a professional certificate. They can strike all they want, but you just can’t look forward to making a great living doing dirty work. There is always someone else willing to do it for less.
For a lot of these janitors it may be too late. But I hope at least their kids can avail themselves of the opportunities we have in this country. And I hope that today’s janitors are wearing gloves and using other safety equipment. They don’t get paid enough to ruin their health in the process…
Art,
Its a lot easier said than done. The sad truth is that there are too many kids in our over-crowded public schools that NEVER get face time with a college counselor. NEVER.
If a teenager doesn’t have someone helping him plan out the complicated road to college, many of them will never make it there.
If that 17-year-old doesn’t have some help reading the map to financial aide and scholarships, he could easily assume that college isn’t an option.
My parents never went to college and therefore knew nothing about SATs or personal statements. I was in the dark for far too long and many of my peers entered the game with much more preparation than I.
While I understand your point: Stop whining and start educating yourself. I still think that there is a larger issue at hand, and the solution is far from this easy.
I miss you guys. Hope all is well. How are your boys?
Mike,
Great to hear from you! Hope all is well. My daughter is starting FIDM this summer, at their Irvine campus. My fifteen year old son is the top student at Godinez High School, and he is a damn good pitcher on their JV baseball team too.
The other boys are doing well too. The four year old is turning five in a few weeks. The eleven year old is doing well in his karate classes and enjoying his youth.
As for the issue of college and working people, I could not agree more. But I teach for an apprenticeship program for non union painters. They do a lot better than nine dollars an hour! When they graduate as journeymen, after three years, they can make up to thirty five an hour on public work!
I too made a lot of mistakes re college as a young person. I did not finish until I was an adult. Now I know better, but hindsight is 20/20.
In Santa Ana, it would be great if the city would build more libraries to help the janitors move up the ladder. But Pulido and his cartel don’t want to do anything to help the immigrants in our town. Pulido has blown twenty years doing nothing for his fellow immigrants. It is just tragic.
At any rate, we miss you and I hope that Phoenix has been to your liking. Hope you will come back to us at some point in the future!
If I may…
I always talk about how I never went to college, but you could hardly call me uneducated. In my case, I was in foster care as a teenager and forced to fend for myself starting literally on my 18th birthday. While I think the lack of a college education has hurt my resume, I’d like to point out that it still isn’t for everyone.
Personally, I’m very much a free thinker and I’m not sure how well I’d do if I were forced to learn certain things that I don’t care to and in a such a rigid, regimented environment. However, I have not stopped, and surely will never stop educating myself and I think that always continuing to learn and improve one’s self is the most important thing a person can do, even college graduates.
At this point in my life, the fact that I wasn’t given an opportunity to further my official education (at least so far) has changed my perspective considerably for the better and had I gone to college I’m not sure I would be happy with the person I would have become.
As Art pointed out, there any many jobs that undereducated people can do that pay a lot more than $9 an hour and don’t require 4 years of schooling.
People just need the intelligence and motivation to do better for themselves and stop blaming their lack of education for their decision to take such dirty jobs for such little pay. It’s usually their own fault that they aim so low.
SMS
If the janitor has a “AA” or “BA” or “MBA” how much should the janitor be paid?
Honest work deserves honest pay.
cook,
You missed the point my friend. As Sarah wrote, there is A LOT of work out there that pays more than nine dollars an hour. In some cases it is harder work, but as you wrote, honest work deserves honest pay.
The point is, these janitorial jobs are no plums and aren’t worth fighting over. If there misguided union workers think they are going to strike it rich in janitorial, they probably also think they can afford a home in Floral Park…
How about janitors getting paid a living wage. Granted they are never going to get rich but they should be able to afford food, transportation and shelter after working a 40 hour week. They should also have healthcare and safe working conditions. What is wrong with Americans, why don’t we value honest labor? Not everyone has the mental abilities to go to college and get an MBA, Art, does this mean that they are lazy or somehow deficient? These people are working full time and living in poverty, that’s wrong.
#6,
Again, they could be making more money elsewhere. Now if they cannot do so because they don’t have their papers, then we need to look at another amnesty. That will open up more doors for these workers.
Bottom line – they can march all they want. But if they drop the mop and pick up a paint brush they can immediately give themselves a big raise.
Someone has to do janitorial work and they DESERVE decent compensation. Let me remind you that janitors are often left alone with sensitive information [ company files etc..] so you don’t exactly want to leave these jobs to losers. As long as someone is working they deserve a LIVING WAGE. Stop throwing red herrings in about their wanting to buy a house in Floral Park, they have a LEGITIMATE issue.
I think this picture goes back to the idea that everybody wants a bigger piece of the pie.
I can’t imagine how hard it would be living, earning $9 an hour, with little of no other benfits and feeling good about myself and my family’s prospects.
And while the janitors are only getting crumbs, they do have every right to demand a increase pay but the building owner has a right to say no.
Even if these building owners agreed to raise their wage, the chances are that this owner will probably end up either laying off workers to pay for this or pass on this to the tenants that occupy her/his building. Especially, considering that we are in a recession and have no where near the occupancy rates we had the last few years.
So ultimately, it will the consumer/customer/residents/taxpayers who will have to carry the additional charge in paying for the additional pay for these janitors.
And then, whose next for a raise!
Everybody that makes $9 an hour raise your hand. Resturant workers, retail workers, attraction workers, and many more make $9 an hour and as long the business owners wants to pay them a livable wage, we all need to understand we are going to pay for it.
Then, education is the only realistic way out of this situation.
I could only imagine that these janitors are probably working two jobs and have a children at home that will probably continual this cycle of low paying jobs since education in Santa Ana is extremely substandard.
Sure, Santa Ana has fundmental schools but even the fundamental schools are not even close in scores to the top schools in nearby school districts.
This is the main reason that I am a Republican.
Substandard schooling can only be fixed with vouchers and with the Democrats in the hip pocket of the CTA, another generation of minority and poor children will never acheive their full potential.
The worst part of this understanding that of all the advocates of public schooling , none would ever submit to sending their kids to the these substandards schools, yet for everbody else kids they are good enough.
I heard that about 75% of pubic school teachers send their kids to a private school, yet little Maria and Jose parent’s have no choice.
In the end, maybe 70% of the children that attend Santa Ana schools are slightly better to have a higher standard of living than their immigrants parents.
Jose Moreno
#9
Vouchers do nothing but further the agenda of privatization. Remember, the problem isn’t always the schools but lazy kids unwilling to learn because they don’t realize the consequences of their inactions.
How would a nation of private schools paid for with public money address this issue? Not to mention that the rules and curriculums tend to be a lot less uniform when they can be determined by individual private schools and very often arbitrarily.
And since most private schools are non-secular, this will eventually become yet another church/state issue.
SMS
There are no remedial jobs, just remedial pay.
Demonizing a persons education and type of job for the purpose of cheating them out of their pay is pretty low.
Back in the early 70
Cook,
Oh really? I have a full time job as a safety director for an $80 million contractor. But I also am an adjunct instructor at Cerritos College. And I teach part time for a safety training company. Two other companies contract training work to me when they need a Spanish speaker.
I am also a former graphic designer and a fairly capable writer.
The point is, I can pick and choose the work I want to do. Because I have the education and the experience. But none of that came to me for free. I owe $55K in student loans. And I continue to take classes whenever possible.
I started out just like a lot of these people. The difference is my parents pushed me to do more and I pushed myself as well.
There is work out there Cook that pays far more than nine dollars an hour. But it is often hard work. And yes sometimes you have to learn a thing or two to do the work.
In this day and age we have to keep improving ourselves. The days of working your whole life for a union or a big company are OVER. If indeed a degree becomes obsolete, then we have to drag our butts into class again.
In my life I have been a graphic designer, an advertising sales rep., a marketing director, a business owner, a project manager and now I work in safety. And if that career goes kaput I will figure something out. That is just the way of the world Cook. Protesting so you can make another nickel an hour just doesn’t cut it…
SMS
There would absolutely be nothing worse than continuing to allow another generation of minority kids in Santa Ana go through the public school system.
Meanwhile, it people like yourself that continue to deflect the issues concerning minority kids in public education and vouchers by bringing out the “privatization is evil” point or that mexicans kids are inherently “lazy” or don’t understand the consequences of their actions.
That’s BS coming from SMS.
Again, I’m not talking about a nation of private schools, only private non secular schools in underachieving school districts which happen to be in minority school districts.
Your so into that color blind idea that people should never vote based on color, ethincity or race yet this is the best example that when considering education it matters.
#13
It’s because I’m so colorblind that I forgot to look at it that way. It’s kind of like that South Park episode where there is a racist fight in town over the city flag and the children didn’t realize that it had anything to do with race at all (funny s**t!).
But seriously, you’re absolutely right. In those types of low-income neighborhoods the vouchers DO make sense, but I still say NOT as common practice in other areas. I’m a product of largely metropolitan suburban school districts and while there I made it my business, like Art, to diversify my education as much as possible for the greatest available coping mechanism in an always-changing economy.
I didn’t go to great schools (except for one in elementary), but they were certainly not the worst.
I remember when I was very young and my parents still had a decent amount of money, I was in a more affluent community and the METCO program used to bus in the city kids to our school in the ‘burbs every day.
I’m not sure what the program admission criteria was (I’d bet it was academic), but I remember feeling bad for the kids that didn’t get that opportunity. So OK, vouchers for secular schools in poorer neighborhoods… how can I say no?
SMS
Art, you assume that everyone has the capacity to go to college. Many people have lower IQ’s but are honest and hard working, does this mean they DESERVE to be exploited? I repeat if someone is working full time they deserve a LIVING WAGE no matter how menial the job.
#15,
No I don’t. I have pointed out repeatedly that these janitors can make more money by learning a trade, such as painting.
Art, I wasn
Art, you are illogical. We need janitors. Someone NEEDS to do this job. It is honest, hard work. Whomever does it, deserves a living wage. Otherwise, all professionals should clean their own buildings.
#15
I think Art’s point is that if the janitors decided to try to get better jobs, then the city, dealing with a mass-exodus, would likely have to raise the wage for the next batch of custodians. That ipso-facto gives everyone a raise.
I agree that everyone deserves a living wage, but striking for more money for a job nobody really wants anyway doesn’t make a lot of sense when there are better opportunities out there and any raise is likely to be minimal if negotiated by the strikers.
SMS
SMS do you even know why people strike? There are many jobs people don’t like, but have to be done [garbage collector, nurse, sewer inspector etc.] should we just hope they keep on quitting so we don’t have to pay them decently? Do you honestly WANT to live in a world where there are NO janitors? Stop being such a snob. Janitorial work is necessary and the people who do it should be compensated fairly whether or not you feel their job is good enough or important enough.
#20
Yup. That’s pretty much what I’m saying. No, I don’t want to live in a world with no janitors but again, if people stop taking the jobs, the payscale will have to go up. It’s sort of like a boycott versus a strike.
Yes, I think people should have and/or make opportunities to make more money. I’m such a snob.
SMS