Some New York City school cleaners will be mopping up the money under a wage agreement that bumps their pay to $23 an hour — retroactive to 2011.
It’s a 14% salary increase over the rest of the city’s school cleaners, who have been stuck at $18 an hour since 2007.
The higher salary will go to 600 32BJ workers contracted by private companies to clean city schools.
Their salaries are tied to earnings in related private sector industries, thanks to a prevailing wage set by the City Controller.
But the rest of the 32BJ school cleaners — 4,200 who work for the Department of Education — are in a financial mess.
“My rent just went up, my daughter’s in college … We just want the same pay as the commercial sector,” said Jamal Johnson, 44, a DOE cleaner.
“Not for nothing, I haven’t had a raise since 2007,” said the married father of three, who has worked at I.S. 204 in Queens for 11 years.
The pay inequality means custodians working in schools less than a block apart — doing the same jobs — can earn different salaries.
Custodians who work at Brandeis High School Campus on the Upper East Side, hired by private companies ABM and TEMCO, get $23 an hour. Meanwhile, DOE janitors at P.S. 9M on the same street get $18 an hour because they’re employed by the city, which is exempt from prevailing wage rulings.
SEIU 32BJ has filed a complaint with the Controller over the disparate rates.
The union held a rally at City Hall on Wednesday to call for equal pay across the board.
