By Bob Hennelly

This episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour with Keziah Glow is dedicated to 32 BJ SEIU’s campaign to organize building service workers here in New York, New Jersey, and in ten other states—including the anti-union, right to work south. Collective action is now more vital than ever.

As Senator Bernie Sanders points out, the three wealthiest people in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom half of the American people combined. Over the last 30 years, the top one-percent have seen a $21 trillion increase in its wealth, while the bottom half of American society lost $900 billion.

Union density across the country has dropped from about 20 percent in the early 1980s to 10 percent  nationally. New York, however, ranks first in union density  among the nation’s largest states, more than double of the  U.S. average.

New  York’s leadership role in the labor movement nationally is a consequence of unions like 32 BJ SEIU that continue to add members as well as bargaining units. The nation’s largest building services worker union now represents 185,000 workers  in 12 states and Washington D.C.

Holding employers accountable for substandard wages is essential to ensuring that workers don’t lose ground. And that’s exactly what dozens of  32 BJ union commercial cleaners and security officers were doing  at a rally at Gertz Mall in Queens where they distributed turkeys and canned food on November 26. They also bestowed the “Turkey of the Year” award to L&J Commercial and Residential Services cleaning contractor, for the company’s ongoing efforts to undermine labor standards in New York City.

We speak with Jerry Lemaine,  a field coordinator for 32BJ SEIU’s New York Metro Commercial Division, a division that represents 20,000 commercial office cleaners across the city.

In the second half of the show we check in with Anna Marie Hill, 32 BJ SEIU’s New Jersey director about her union’s organizing efforts at the American Dream Mall in the Meadowlands.

Over 20 years ago, the New Jersey’s Sports and Exposition Authority announced plans to let state land be used for the creation of a mega-entertainment and retail mall in the Meadowlands amidst the existing sports complex. Officials touted that its construction would create thousands of union construction jobs.

That project was initially called Xanadu and floundered for many years, missing deadline after deadline despite hundreds of millions of dollars in state subsidies. Finally, in 2019 it opened as “American Dream Meadowlands.”

But according to 32BJ, the American Dream mall has undercut labor standards and engaged with a succession of cleaning contractors that have resorted to illegally firing cleaners in retaliation for their efforts to unionize. At the same time, Triple Five Group, the owner of the American Dream mall, illegally banned those workers from entering the mall for a period of five years, depriving them of the ability to earn income. 

These blatant violations of labor law resulted in a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) prosecution. In July 2023, a federal judge ordered the company to reinstate the workers. The NLRB also ordered the cleaning company to  provide back pay—but it has still failed to pay it.

Listen to the entire show below: