MARKETS SETTLE WITH JANITORS ALBERTSONS, RALPHS, VONS PAY $22.4 MILLION IN CASE.Byline: Staff and Wire Reports A federal judge Monday approved a $22.4 million settlement involving more than 2,000 janitors who claimed they were underpaid un·der·paid v. Past tense and past participle of underpay. underpaid Adjective not paid as much as the job deserves underpaid adj → for their work in three national supermarket chains. The payment will be shared among the janitors who worked at Albertsons Inc., Ralphs Grocery Co. and Safeway Inc.'s Vons supermarkets between 1994 and 2001. They will receive $4,000 to $10,000 each, depending on the amount of work they completed, union officials said. About 50 members of the local janitors union gathered outside the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area. The sprawling, multi-centered megacity is such that its downtown core is often considered just another district like Hollywood or after U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson held a brief hearing and approved the settlement. They held up a large check and a banner with the slogan A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a political, commercial, religious and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose. Slogans vary from the written and the visual to the chanted and the vulgar. ``Justice For Janitors Justice for Janitors is a janitor organization movement and part of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Justice for Janitors started in Denver, Colorado in 1985. .'' ``I want to share this victory with my co-workers who labored with me in these stores,'' Jesus Lopez, 30, said through a translator. Lopez, a former Vons janitor, said he scrubbed scrub 1 v. scrubbed, scrub·bing, scrubs v.tr. 1. a. To rub hard in order to clean. b. To remove (dirt or stains) by hard rubbing. 2. floors seven nights a week for five years, sometimes for 12 hours a night. He said he was paid about $500 every couple of weeks. ``The wealthiest companies in the U.S. are stealing wages from some of the poorest workers in the country,'' said Stephen Lerner, founder of the Justice For Janitors campaign. Ralphs and Vons representatives did not return calls seeking comment. Lilia Rodriguez, spokeswoman for Albertsons, said that the company would not comment on the settlement. The janitors covered in the lawsuit worked for a national contracting firm, Building One Service Solutions. The lawsuit, filed in 2002, claimed the supermarket chains supervised su·per·vise tr.v. su·per·vised, su·per·vis·ing, su·per·vis·es To have the charge and direction of; superintend. [Middle English *supervisen, from Medieval Latin the janitors' work schedules directly and knew they were not being paid proper wages and benefits for their labor, but continued to employ them anyway through staffing agencies. Building One has since filed for bankruptcy protection. Some janitors claimed they were assigned to work seven days a week, sometimes 365 days a year, without any overtime pay. Others weren't even paid minimum wage, the lawsuit claimed. Supermarket officials said they weren't responsible for the janitors, though store managers often directed them. Supermarket representatives agreed three years ago to bring janitors up to union wages by hiring them directly or hiring union contractors. Union officials maintained Monday that Vons is still not paying its janitors fair pay. ``Vons still hasn't learned its lesson,'' said Mike Garcia
AFL-CIO in full American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations U.S. , Local 1877. ``SEIU SEIU Service Employees International Union SEIU Special Education Intake Unit SEIU Secondary Education Interdisciplinary Unit SEIU Software Engineering Institute Union will do whatever it takes to ensure that every janitor is paid minimum wages and overtime so that they can raise their families.'' CAPTION(S): photo Photo: (color) In downtown Los Angeles, janitors hold up signs celebrating a $22.4 million settlement for them Monday in federal court in a lawsuit against supermarkets accused of illegally underpaying them. Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press |
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