Justice for Janitors is a labor organizing campaign operated by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) which claims to represent more than 150,000 janitors and similar employees across the United States. ¹ It was founded in 1987 by Stephen Lerner, a former United Farm Workers (UFW) organizer. ² Justice for Janitors conducts public events and disruptive demonstrations during union organizing efforts including hunger strikes and blocking major roadways. ³

Activists with Janitors for Justice have regularly conflicted with SEIU leadership due to the larger percentage of prospective janitor-union members being immigrants, ³ such as a 1995 hunger strike by dissident union members against the then-president of Justice for Janitors’ founding local union. ⁴

SEIU California president David Huerta, who was arrested in June 2025 for allegedly impeding federal officers during an immigration raid in Los Angeles, began his career as a Justice for Janitors organizer. ⁵

History and Background

1990 Los Angeles Strike

Justice for Janitors was founded by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 399 in 1990 after the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) broke up a protest by janitors who were attempting to organize an SEIU-affiliated labor union at a local business which performed cleaning services within the Center City business district. ^{3 6}

Rocio Saenz, a union organizer who would rise to SEIU national secretary-treasurer and executive vice president as well as Fight for $15 minimum wage campaign national director, was one of the organizers of those demonstrations. ⁷

Following the strike, the local SEIU chapter sued the City of Los Angeles over claims of the LAPD’s “use of excessive force,” and in 1993 the city settled the suit for $2.35 million. ⁸

In 1995, the Los Angeles Times reported that janitor unionization rates in Los Angeles had increased from 10 percent in 1987 to nearly 90 percent in 1995. ⁴

Bread and Roses Film

The 1990 Center City strike and the SEIU’s efforts to organize janitors in Los Angeles were the subject of the 2000 movie Bread and Roses, starring Adrien Brody and Pilar Padilla and directed by British director Ken Loach. ⁹  The drama told a fictionalized account of an immigrant janitor attempting to organize her workplace under the Justice for Janitors campaign. ⁹

Other Efforts

In 1995, Justice for Janitors organizers in Washington, D.C. used a school bus and other vehicles to block the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge over the Potomac River during a morning rush hour to advocate the SEIU’s demands. ¹⁰

In 2006, a Justice for Janitors organizing campaign at the University of Miami used a hunger strike during Easter Week by janitors to pressure university president Donna Shalala, a former secretary of Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration, into accepting union demands. ¹¹

Controversy

In June 1995, several Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 399 members affiliated with Justice for Janitors won 21 of 25 union executive board seats during that year’s local union leadership elections. ⁴ Following the election, SEIU local 339 president Jim Zellers allegedly blocked several proposals passed by the new board which was made of several Justice for Janitors members. ⁴

In response to Zeller’s blocking, a dozen union members associated with Justice for Janitors and the SEIU Multiracial Alliance dissident group began an August 1995 hunger strike in front of the union’s local headquarters. According to a Los Angeles Times interview with one of the strikers, SEIU Local 399 was “a classic case of a union sucking up dues and taking its membership for granted.” ⁴

In September 1995, the national SEIU removed all Local 399’s leadership and placed control of the board by an appointed trustee. ¹²

In 2010, Justice for Janitors members were moved from SEIU Local 399 to SEIU Local 1877, which would become United Service Workers West (SEIU-USWW). ¹³

1. “Justice for Janitors.” Justice for Janitors. Accessed July 20, 2025. https://www.justiceforjanitors.org/.
2. Rahman, Nadhia. “Lessons from a Landmark Campaign: An Interview with Stephen Lerner on Justice for Janitors.” New Labor Forum, January 8, 2025. https://newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2025/01/06/lessons-from-a-landmark-campaign-an-interview-with-stephen-lerner-on-justice-for-janitors/.
3. Lerner, Stephen, and Jono Schaffer. “25 Years Later: Lessons from the Organizers of Justice for Janitors.” Talk Poverty, June 16, 2015. https://talkpoverty.org/2015/06/16/justice-for-janitors/index.html.
4. Nazario, Sonia. “Hunger Strike Marks Union’s Split : Labor: Strong Dissident Group within Janitors Organization Launches Protest after Effort to Take Control of Board Is Blocked.” Los Angeles Times, August 11, 1995. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-08-08-me-32737-story.html.
5. Morales, Christina. “Who Is David Huerta, the Labor Leader Arrested in Los Angeles?” The New York Times, June 9, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/us/david-huerta-labor-leader-los-angeles.html.
6. Loomis, Erik. “That Time the LAPD Beat the Janitors and Found Themselves Facing Rolling Thunder.” Wonkette, June 15, 2025. https://www.wonkette.com/p/that-time-the-lapd-beat-the-janitors.
7. “Rocío Sáenz, Secretary-Treasurer.” Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Accessed July 20, 2025. https://www.seiu.org/rocio-saenz.
8. Nazario, Sonia. “Janitors’ Suit Settled : Council to Pay $2.35 Million for Union Members Beaten by Police.” Los Angeles Times, September 4, 1993. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-04-me-31451-story.html.
9. “Bread and Roses.” IMDb, October 25, 2000. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212826/.
10. Williams, Jane. “11. Restructuring Labor’s Identity: The Justice for Janitors Campaign in Washington, D.C.” In The Transformation of U.S. Unions: Voices, Visions, and Strategies from the Grassroots edited by Ray M. Tillman and Michael S. Cummings, 203-218. Boulder, USA: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781685854072-012
11. Musynske, Gavin. “University of Miami Janitors Campaign for Economic Justice, 2005-2006.” Global Nonviolent Action Database, September 12, 2009. https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/university-miami-janitors-campaign-economic-justice-2005-2006.
12. “Officers Suspended, Trustee to Run Janitors’ Union Local.” Los Angeles Times, September 15, 1995. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-09-15-me-46298-story.html.
13. “Justice for Janitors History Project Timeline.” UCLA Labor Center. Accessed July 20, 2025. https://www.labor.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/J4J-Campaign-Timeline.pdf.