Striking janitors from Houston flew to Washington, New York and Sacramento on Tuesday and set up picket lines to protest their low wages and lack of health insurance.
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In sympathy with the Houston workers, janitors in more than 30 cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco, went on strike. Janitors in Indianapolis, who filed charges of unfair labor practices against ABM on Monday, also joined the strike.
The janitors from Houston began walking the picket lines in front of several buildings that are cleaned by ABM on the East and West coasts, said Andrew McDonald, spokesman for the Service Employees International Union in Washington, D.C., which is trying to organize the commercial cleaners in Houston and Indianapolis.
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As many as 10,000 janitors work in Houston cleaning the city's office buildings at night. They're mostly immigrant women who earn about $5.25 an hour for the part-time work. The majority work for one of five national cleaning companies, including ABM, which dominates the local office-cleaning market.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3273610