Union, Dow Jones at odds about cleaning jobs

Union leaders and officials at Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and Marketwatch, disagree over why 40 laborers who cleaned the company’s offices lost their jobs right after the new year, according to a story by Richard Khavkine of the New Brunswick Home News Tribune.

Khavkine wrote, “Union officials, though, said that the 40 employees were given no advance notice that they would no longer be cleaning the Dow Jones offices. Crews reporting for work on Jan. 1, just days after they had ratified a new four-year contract, were barred by security personnel from entering the building, union officials said.

“The union represents nearly 100,000 workers in six states and in Washington, D.C., including about 7,000 office cleaners in Central Jersey and North Jersey — which account for about 75 percent of commercial cleaning crews in those portions of the state, according to union officials.

“Patricia Cabrera, an assistant supervisor for the local in New Jersey, said the union had reason to doubt that Dow Jones invited bids from the roughly 40 companies that have signed on to the union’s master agreement.

“Cabrera said that prior to submitting bids, those companies routinely contact the union to get a sense of its worker rolls.”

Read more here.