Where trade unionists start their day on the net.
Thirteen days ago, we asked you to send off your messages in support of the 1,700 office cleaners in Houston, Texas who had been on strike since October 23.
Your email messages -- more than 3,000 of them -- were delivered to the chief executive officer of oil giant Chevron, whose offices were being cleaned by people earning around $20 per day.
Last night, that campaign resulted in a huge victory for working people.
More than 5,300 Houston janitors won a massive pay increase (more than doubling over the course of the contract), an increase in hours from four to six, affordable health insurance (for only $20 per month for an individual), and paid time off from work, something which many of these workers have never experienced in their lives.
It's a huge victory for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and not the first of its kind this year.
A few minutes ago, I interviewed the SEIU's property services division director Stephen Lerner about the significance of the Houston victory. You can hear the interview -- it's only 2 minutes long -- here:
http://www.labourstart.org/radio/podcast/stephenlerner.mp3
You can read the SEIU's statement announcing the victory here:
http://www.houstonjanitors.org/janitors-victory-11202006/
And of course there's full coverage of the dispute and the victory on LabourStart itself:
http://www.labourstart.org
I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers in the United States a very happy Thanksgiving holiday.
Eric Lee
Texts appearing here are often press releases sent to us by unions and other organizations which do not appear elsewhere on the web. LabourStart takes no responsibility for their content.