Push to Bring Janitors’ Pay Up To Private Rates, With DOE Receptive

After their union has long criticized the “two-tiered” salary and benefit gaps between janitors and maintenance workers employed by contractors hired by the Department of Education and those employed by city-affiliated Custodian Engineers, DOE officials said during a Feb. 2 oversight hearing by the City Council’s subcommittee on education that they plan to re-evaluate the system.

Under the “indirect-employment” system, 800 quasi-independent Custodian Engineers act as supervisors who employ cleaners and set maintenance budgets. They manage 4,200 School Cleaners and Handymen represented by Service Employees International Union 32BJ as well as 1,200 Firemen and Stationary Engineers—who run boilers, generators and other machinery—represented by International Union of Operating Engineers Local 94.