After years of enduring harsh working conditions for low pay, Cintas employees in Montreal have become the first in the company's history to successfully form a union, according to a statement by UNITE HERE, the international union that represents the workers. Cintas is a multinational laundry services corporation with facilities across North America.
"Our efforts were rewarded: we now have our union," says Gabriel Aszalos, a six-year washroom employee.
Throughout North America, Cintas has fought workers' ongoing efforts to organize a union for better jobs, pay, and dignity. The workers' victory in Montreal shows their commitment to the union and the importance of having a fair process.
After a more than year-long delay, the Quebec Labor Board finally certified the union based on a "card check" vote of the workers showing a majority endorsed the union.
"Even with the long delay, our strong labor laws ensured that our rights were respected," said Aszalos. "This is a historical victory for us, and we hope it inspires our co-workers throughout the United States and Canada to stand together for safer jobs and a living wage."
Lina Aristeo, director of UNITE HERE's Quebec Council, said, "Now that the Labor Board has decided in favor of workers' right to form a union, we hope that Cintas will follow the law and negotiate in good faith with employees."
In sharp contrast to employees in Quebec, Cintas workers in the US do not enjoy a fair chance. Cintas has unleashed a vicious campaign of coercion against workers wanting a union.
Just a week earlier, Cintas was forced to settle charges brought to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by the workers alleging the company illegally fired a California worker and that management threatened to "kick driver-employees with steel toed boots" to show it wasn't afraid of workers' organizing efforts.
The company was forced to agree to pay the fired worker nearly $30,000 in back wages and post a notice in its Vista, California, laundry describing workers legal right to organize.
Over the past three years, Cintas has settled more than 70 charges alleging illegal interference with employees' right to organize with the NLRB. An NLRB Administrative Law Judge called the company's violations in a North Carolina plant "intensive" and "not isolated or minor." The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that Cintas suppressed workers' right to speak freely on the job in every US facility.
Workers also charged the company with illegally using threats of deportation and harassment by immigration officials against Latino workers who joined the campaign for the union.
Since 2003, Cintas workers throughout North America have been standing with UNITE HERE and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in the Uniform Justice campaign. Workers hope to gain respect on the job, living wages, affordable healthcare and safer jobs.
UNITE HERE along with a broad coalition of religious, political and community organization, have endorsed the Employee Free Choice Act, to protect the democratic rights of workers to organize or join unions.
The bipartisan-supported bill would provide for mediation and arbitration of first-contract disputes and authorize stronger penalties for violation of the law when workers seek to organize.
While both candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination have pledged to sign the Employee Free Choice Act if elected, some in the labor movement have reacted negatively to the Clinton campaign based on the Cintas struggle. According to some media accounts, UNITE HERE's endorsement of presidential candidate Barack Obama at least partially rested on details surrounding the Cintas case.
Mark Penn, the Clinton campaign's top strategist, owns the PR company that helped Cintas battle union organizing efforts, sometimes using racially divisive tactics. The union's president told the New York Times in January that his membership's negative view of Clinton's close relationship with Penn hurt her chances of receiving their endorsement.
