Malden Custodians Ratify New Agreement

After several months of negotiations, custodians voted 18 to 3 on Oct. 25 to ratify a new agreement with the Malden School Committee. The hard-fought agreement comes after a high profile campaign by the custodians and their union to stop the city from outsourcing their jobs and to address persistent concerns about school cleanliness.

Last April, the Mayor and the School Committee proposed outsourcing the custodian’s jobs to a private cleaning company where employees would have lower pay and no job rights.

Faced with the prospect of losing their jobs, the custodians reached out to the community and to their elected officials to stop the plan. As a result, the City Council voted last June to provide an additional $2,226,293 to the School Dept. to keep all 28 custodians working at the Malden Schools. The funding also provided for hiring a much needed custodial supervisor to ensure improvement in school cleanliness.

The new contract requires more accountability from both employer and employees regarding evaluations of the custodians work and features an entirely new “performance evaluation” form. The custodians also agreed to some alterations in the provisions that allow management to discipline workers for poor performance.

Union members will receive 2% pay increases each year of the two year contract.

“I think we found the right balance to improve school cleanliness and keeping local jobs in Malden,” said Rich Cutone, a school custodian for 27 years and union vice-president. “We are glad it’s finally come to a conclusion and we’re moving forward. We deeply appreciate the support we received from so many parents, students and elected officials.”

The Malden School Committee still needs to approve the contract before it can be implemented.

SEIU Local 888 unites more than 8,000 public service, higher education and not-for-profit workers in Massachusetts for the good jobs and quality services our communities need. Learn more at: www.seiu888.org.