Sunday, October 20, 2002
The union is at fault?: The Service Employees International Union Local 254 certainly isn’t Hub Blog’s cup of tea. And, it should go without saying, the union DOES have a selfish institutional motive for backing and launching the current janitors’ strike in Boston. But Tom Bonds, vice president of Consolidated Service Corp. and director and treasurer of Maintenance Contractors of New England, is simply wrong when he writes that “the real story of the current janitors' ‘strike’ is about union bosses using Boston as a launching pad for their national organizing goals.” No, Tom, the real story is that contractors have provided obnoxiously miserable benefits and pay for janitors over the years, giving an obnoxious union the opening it needed to push its agenda. The janitors are caught in the middle -- and contractors are largely responsible for the current mess.
