In an important victory for St. Louis union organizations, janitors at Express Scripts won a new deal with the company after joining the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
Janitors working at the pharmaceutical company’s St. Louis headquarters will now be contracted out to a new agency, starting when the employees become union members on June 1. The contractor that currently employs them, Centaur Building Services, was criticized by the janitors for offering low wages and overly expensive health insurance.
A demonstration outside the company’s headquarters on December 18 helped win them a new contract that will include a better deal on healthcare.
Nick Desideri, a communications specialist at SEIU Local 1, said Centaur’s janitors were offered an insurance plan that required them to pay 63 percent of their healthcare costs, about three times as much as janitors under the SEIU’s contract.
“All of this for insurance that does not even cover all the essential health benefits as defined by the Affordable Care Act,” Desideri said. “The healthcare offered to Local 1 janitors under their contract is far superior and will help janitors at Express Scripts support their families.”
Desideri worked with union organizers at Express Scripts for several years before they scored any major victories. On February 28, Centaur settled a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, agreeing to pay $7,000 to a former janitor who said he had been dismissed for union organizing.
However, the janitors’ decision to unionize provoked a response from Express Scripts, who Desideri said have “decided to drop Centaur and go with a responsible contractor.”
Dominique Curry, who has worked as a janitor at Express Scripts for about a year, said he thought the pay was lower than it should be. Still, he was not particularly interested in unionizing until he met an organizer who explained what it would change about his workplace.
“You feel secure with the union,” Curry said.
Curry said he appreciates the knowledge that he and his coworkers will now have a voice in their workplace.
“The union has made everything better,” Curry said.
The conflict over Express Scripts is not the first time Centaur Building Services has found itself under an unflattering spotlight. In 2015, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) found probable cause to believe the company had fired an African-American janitor due to her race.
Centaur, which was recently acquired by the French company Atalian Global Services, is also poised to acquire a $13.5 million janitorial contract at St. Louis’ Lambert International Airport. SEIU Local 1 is fighting against the deal, saying a company with Centaur’s record should not be rewarded for bad behavior.
“A company like that does not belong at our airport,” Desideri said.
In the complaint of discrimination, an African-American woman who worked as a janitorial supervisor for Centaur claimed that in 2012 some of her subordinates were “upset about Obama being reelected and spoke about their guns in a threatening manner,” including calling her racial slurs. When the plaintiff told her supervisors, she claimed, they did nothing.
Shortly after that, she claimed, her supervisors began asking her to sign a contract demoting her from supervisor to general cleaner and to work longer hours. A week later, she was terminated. The EEOC found that there was grounds for the plaintiff to proceed with a lawsuit, which was filed in federal court.
The St. Louis Lambert Airport Commission has already voted to approve Centaur’s contract bid, but it will also have to go through the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, which consists of Mayor Lyda Krewson, Comptroller Darlene Green and Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed.
