Searching for Labor's Role

Searching for Labor's Role

By George F. Will

Thursday, December 29, 2005

In one of the biggest successes in the history of organized labor in the South, the 4,700 janitors working for Houston's four largest cleaning companies recently joined the Service Employees International Union. The janitors, most of them immigrants, earn an average of $5.30 an hour -- 15 cents more than the minimum wage -- without health care benefits. The mobilization of the janitors is one sign of why Andy Stern, head of the SEIU, is today's most important -- perhaps the only really important -- labor leader.

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