WORKING CLASS SOLIDARITY

My dad told me recently that the most important public health workers are garbage collectors and janitors. So much of our health relies on a clean environment. These people do some of the most important work in society. If we learned in dirty public environments full of garbage, we’d all be sick. I cannot thank these people enough for the valuable work that they do.

Shout out to all garbage collectors, janitors and housekeepers!

A couple years ago, the custodial staff at my old highschool went on strike as they tried to sort out some issues with the school board and stuff. They still came to work, and cleaned up any urgent or emergency messes (vomit, bathroom disasters, hazardous spills, etc) but otherwise didn’t clean up the hallways or classrooms for about a month. By the end, the hallways were lined with garbage and dust, some of us had to wipe our own desks down if we wanted to sit at them (note: this was a school of 800+students, one building). There were some hallways and staircases (where the younger kids hung out) that you just didn’t walk through. The cafeteria was off limits for anyone sane of mind. It got to a point that a group of us were organizing a student walk-out in support of the janitorial union so that the whole case can be over with (we were told we may get expelled if we did that, and that it probably wouldn’t help matters anyway, so we didn’t)

On the first Monday back after the strike was over, kids walked into the school and were visibly in awe of the contrast between what the school was and how it was cleaned. My class applauded the head of the janitorial staff (who was my friend, shout out to Drew), students thanked them for their work on the announcements, and overall everybody was being nicer and generally more grateful for the work they do.

Don’t take the cleaning staff if any place for granted, you have no idea what things would look like without them there.