Window cleaners seek union representation

I work for the largest window cleaning company in the area in which I live, and we are paid an hourly wage of 13.25 an hour which is a base hourly wage..we get paid what our employers call peice work..theres a certain amount of time put on each account, if a building pays say 8 man days and you do it by yourself if you get it done in 4 days you still get paid those 8 man days, but you get a base wage, no overtime , its all straight time.. so it would be 64 hours pay for that job, lately they have been cutting the time on alot of the jobs, jobs that once paid 4 days or 2 days now pay 3 and 1/2 days or 1 and 1/2 days but thats the price we pay for not having a union and working for a small family owned business, now we have a thing thats called an incentive pay program... they stopped giving us raises about 4 years ago..instead they give us incentive raises to cut back on absenteeism and tardiness, if your late or absent more than twice in a quarter you lose your "incentive raise" so now we dont get raises, I was always under the impression a raise was a part of your hourly wage and your hourly wage is seperate from an incentive pay? I dont know Im just a window cleaner I dont know jack squat according to my employer! but Ill give you a hint as to who this company is..they have the monopoly on the city of Cincinnati and all the money that they bring in from the sweat off of their employees doesnt go back t o the employees..it goes into boats and cottages on lakes and resorts and failed business adventures like FOG B GONE , they couldnt care less if the children of the employees who's out there making the company what they are, are going hungry or not, everytime they cut the time on a job they are taking food out of the mouth of a child of the employers that work for them, the cost of gas has more than doubled in the last 3 years which has caused a ripple effect in the economy and caused the cost of everything to go up (food,clothing,home supplies,) anything that has to be transported to stores to be sold, yet no cost of living raises.. let alone a regular annual raise.. but this is the price we pay for not having a union, so you that are making more than 13.25 an hour hanging on the side of a building sweating infront of mirrored glass..count yourself fortunate! your making more than some

The union companies are not typically safer as Columbia Building Services has a recent fatal accident where its employee was not utilizing the safety equipment following the national safety standards. If the safety was in place this fatal injury could have resulted in bumps or bruise. If you look at OSHA violations you would be surprised that these union companies have the larger amount of safety violations. Many window cleaners are against being involved with the union because thru the union they are concidered an "unskilled trade" with janitors. The window cleaning industry needs mandatory certification requiring all companies to be educated prior to being put into the field to work. Recognizing them as a skilled trade.