BOSTON - There's a call for airlines and the companies they subcontract with to "clean up their act" when it comes to worker safety and training at Logan Airport. According to Roxana Rivera, director of service workers' union 32BJ SEIU, cabin cleaners, wheelchair attendants and baggage handlers are holding a rally today to draw attention to their exposure to hazardous conditions on the job. She said every facet of airport operations contributes to safety, and airlines and their subcontractors are letting workers and the flying public down.

"A good 1500 workers who are told on a daily basis that they should be the eyes and the ears for safety ... Yet workers who are paid poverty wages at the airport aren't provided with proper safety training or equipment," Rivera charged.

Rivera said that, in 2013, four subcontractors at Logan were cited for federal health and safety violations and initially fined more than $37,000.

Rivera said that in the last five months, workers have filed multiple complaints with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for such problems as exposure to bodily fluids when cleaning out aircraft lavatories.

"We're really trying to get the airlines and the contractors that directly employ these workers to step up and help set standards that will ensure increased safety for workers and passengers at the airport," she said.

Rivera credited Massport with making an effort to tackle the safety problems, and said subcontractors such as Ready Jet should not wait for OSHA to fix the problems.

"You know, I don't think the general public understands until they actually hear workers themselves that have been affected by health and safety issues that we've raised through OSHA, and the urgency we need to take action," the union official declared.

Today's rally takes place at the Logan Airport stop on the Blue Line at 3 p.m.



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The past year saw American workers reassessing their jobs. However, those shifts did not result in higher union membership at the national level, now back at previous lows.

Minnesota labor leaders say at the state level, the numbers are a little more promising, with 16% of working Minnesotans part of a union, up slightly from the previous year, and the state's highest level in 14 years.

Bill McCarthy, president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, said apart from more unionized workers being hired for infrastructure projects, there is a growing sense younger workers want their voices heard.

"Whether it's wages or benefits or whatever the case may be, they just want to have a say in that," McCarthy explained.

Not all the organizing is being driven by staff at large employers such as manufacturers. Grocery workers and restaurant staff are formalizing plans to establish unions, and gains are being seen in health care. Despite more activity, experts say laws still make it difficult for these groups to overcome barriers in reaching their goals to successfully bargain.

Labor leaders argued it is why Congress needs to give final approval to the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which is opposed by Senate Republicans and business groups.

Aaron Sojourner, a labor economist at the University of Minnesota, said while the state's latest uptick represents a small difference, he said there is a taste for change within the labor force.

"Through the pandemic, they had the rules of their jobs scrambled and the rules of their lives scrambled," Sojourner pointed out.

He noted some workers felt accommodated, but many others did not, and while existing laws might prevent roadblocks to organizing, Sojourner added workers have a lot of leverage right now with so many open jobs, as well as strong public backing.

By Evalynn Fae Taganna Romano for Yes! Media.
Broadcast version by Eric Tegethoff for Washington News Service reporting for the YES! Media-Public News Service Collaboration


When the pandemic hit, I adjusted to remote work as a University of Washington graduate student while my mother, who is a UW custodian, continued to rise at 3 a.m. each day. She and her co-workers were charged with laying a foundation of safety from COVID-19 while worrying about how the virus would affect their health. At UW, many custodians are immigrants and refugees. Many are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Because of long-standing systemic health and social inequities, they are at increased risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19.

Together, my parents have worked more than 58 years as custodians. So, I've long been aware of the pride and challenges of their work. But the pandemic made clearer than ever how overworked and undervalued custodians are.

It's past time to honor custodial work with hazard pay, livable wages, protection, and care. Given that more than half of custodians are BIPOC-many of them are also immigrants-making these investments in custodian well-being is a critical step toward advancing racial justice.

To show my deep gratitude to my mother and her colleagues, during much of the pandemic, I delivered weekly breakfasts, cloth masks, and thank-you notes during their 4:45 a.m. clock-in. I collected donations and partnered with a local shoe store to provide over 200 custodians with comfortable, safe shoes. But I knew they needed more.

To learn about the health impacts of their work and shine a light on this often invisible profession, I facilitated a photography-based storytelling project with 16 custodians from September through October 2020. What I learned about their working conditions shocked me.

Custodians suffered from aching feet and backs. They worried about harsh cleaning chemicals and contracting the coronavirus. They mourned a colleague who died from COVID-19. They spoke of long commutes and expensive parking, and being unable to afford living in an increasingly expensive and gentrifying Seattle. They also shared painful stories of racial discrimination and feeling belittled by people they encounter during their shifts.

One custodian told me, "[Just] because they [have] a higher education ... it doesn't mean that they can just ... put us down just like that. I mean, we accept it! That we are custodians, but at least show us some respect, as we show them respect too. What if we don't clean their room? And then they gonna go complain. But us, we cannot go complain how they treat us."

Sadly, challenging work conditions are also common for the nearly 2 million custodians working across the U.S.

Custodians make an average of $31,410 per year, hardly a living wage. As a result, many hold second jobs. I know the toll of this firsthand. My father held a second job as a factory worker for years before he passed away. Salaries are even lower for women, and they often face an added burden of balancing work with caregiving duties.

When I was born, my grandmother had to immigrate from the Philippines to care for me so my parents could work through the night on the swing shift, which is from 4:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. During the day, my grandmother was a caregiver for older adults. This balancing act is far too common a stressor for families trying to survive custodial worker wages.

Health disparities due to systemic racism and other social determinants of health inevitably affect a high proportion of custodians. On top of that, 2019 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that custodians working in buildings suffered almost 34,000 nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses involving days away from work-likely an underreporting of incidents.

Another more recent 2020 Washington State study found that custodians routinely experienced mistreatment, including discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation, that led to physical and mental health strains. Additionally, the pandemic has worsened risks due to COVID-19 exposure and the heightened demands of cleaning protocols.

Despite their challenging working conditions, the custodians I connected with through my photography project expressed pride in a job that sustains their lives, and now more than ever, the lives of others. When asked what they need to get through this challenging time, one custodian shared, "It is very important for every person to smile [at us]. They should give us a little bit [of] respect and care for the custodians so our job will be easier. ... Some people, they just look at us, you know, a little bit different from them, but we are just the same too. We work hard for everybody."

Based on my experience being raised by custodians and through my photography project, I've gained a deeper understanding of how to uplift custodial worker rights. Custodians need employers and policymakers to ensure social and racial equity with the following investments and changes:

Offer hazard pay and a livable wage ($15 per hour, or even more in expensive localities).
End the custodian gender wage gap by ensuring equal pay across genders.
Offer public transit subsidies, or offer free parking in regions with poor access to transportation and limited affordable housing.
Ensure safety from COVID-19 infection, including access to effective personal protective equipment and vaccines and enforcement of universal masking policies.
Offer opportunities for rest and rejuvenation, including adequate break rooms.
Provide ergonomic equipment, such as lightweight, height-adjustable mops, proper harness fittings for vacuum backpacks, protection from harmful chemicals, and comfortable shoes.
Offer paid sick leave for vaccination, symptoms of ill health, COVID-19 testing, and caregiving duties.
Offer affordable, flexible child care.
Offer high-quality, accessible health care.
Protect workers from discrimination and harassment by creating a culture that promotes respect and psychological safety for all workers. Even with those changes, workers need avenues for voicing concerns to managers without fear of retaliation. UW recently launched a bias incident reporting tool where employees can anonymously make such reports. This promising solution should be available to custodial and other low-wage workers everywhere.
Offer robust access to interpretation services and translation of health and work-related materials.
Have ongoing safe, respectful conversations with custodians to co-create solutions that serve unique needs within their workplace context (e.g., better understand the immediate needs, supports, and obstacles faced by custodians, including those in our undocumented community).

These changes will have immediate, short-term costs. However, the low-wage labor shortage is making it even clearer that private sector employers must pay a living wage to be viable. Furthermore, a progressive tax on high earners can fund compensation for workers in public sector jobs. Investing in custodians' well-being will pay off in the long run by reducing health care costs, workers' compensation payouts, and turnover.

Despite the tremendous stress of the pandemic, my mother's satisfaction in her work remains, as it does with other custodians I've met throughout the years. The time is now for us to nurture a culture of care for those who care for our spaces, and to pay and protect them in a way that acknowledges their value as workers who are truly essential to our society.

See this piece's accompanying photo essay, The Dignity of Custodians. For more information and updates, you can follow the UW Custodian Project on Instagram, and visit the website.

Evalynn Fae Taganna Romano wrote this article for YES! Magazine.


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Advocates for working families say the child-care crisis is undermining the stability of many households in Ohio.

At this week's meeting of the Ohio Children's Legislative Caucus this week, Chelsea Kiene, director of communications and stakeholder engagement for the group Groundwork Ohio, shared polling that confirmed that child-care challenges have disrupted the jobs of one in three working parents, affecting their workplace attendance and performance. Among those with kids age 5 and younger, Kiene said one in four parents had to cut back on work hours to care for them.

"If the pandemic of the last two years has been a tipping point, then the omicron variant of the past month has really been a breaking point," she said, "especially for parents of children under the age of 5 who aren't in school and aren't able to get vaccinated."

In the poll, 80% of Ohio voters said child care is expensive in their community. Currently, center-based infant care is roughly $10,000 a year, 43% of a single parent's income.

Availability is another challenge. Last year, one in eight child-care jobs was lost in the pandemic.

Lois Rosenberry, president of Children's Discovery Center, with six locations in northwest Ohio, said they've had to turn families away because of severe staffing shortages. Rosenberry said some end up not returning to work, while others juggle telecommuting and caregiving.

"When parents can't find child care and work from home," she said, "many times these young children are losing years by not being stimulated with age-appropriate activities that provide the foundation for learning and later success in life."

Ohio lawmakers appropriated more than $700 million from the American Rescue Plan, specifically to stabilize the child-care system, which Kiene contended is just a start. Beyond today's workforce, she said, longer-term investments are needed in the future.

"Children, when they are in quality early-learning settings, they are more prepared for kindergarten, which is the biggest predictors in how they perform," she said, "not just throughout their academic careers and their post-secondary attainment, but also how they do in their careers and in life."

It's estimated that child-care challenges cost Ohio's economy $1.7 billion a year.