WHEREAS, Thousands of California janitors work for contractors and building owners, cleaning office buildings, business parks, high-tech campuses, and many other sectors of the California market; and

WHEREAS, For more than a decade these janitors, through the Justice for Janitors campaign, have worked hard to lift themselves out of poverty and, almost everywhere, have secured family health care. By lifting themselves up, these janitors have thereby transformed a once troubled industry; and

WHEREAS, The progress of these janitors, through their campaigns for affordable family health care and dignified wages, has benefited our entire community, including immigrant communities and local businesses, and brightened the hopes of an economic recovery in California. These janitors are proof of the American Dream of advancing to a better life through hard work; and

WHEREAS, Affordable medical benefits have kept these janitors and their families healthier, thereby reducing costs borne by the rest of the community, and affordable medical benefits have kept these families from facing financial calamity when illness strikes; and

WHEREAS, For two decades, the SEIU United Service Workers West Justice for Janitors movement has helped low-wage workers who clean buildings in major cities and suburbs across California to achieve social and economic justice and earn broad-based support from the public as well as religious, political, and community leaders; and

WHEREAS, June 15th has for 22 years in the United States been celebrated by janitors and their supporters as Justice for Janitors Day, a day when janitors and other workers demonstrate for justice in order to ensure dignified wages and affordable family health care; now, therefore, be it