Film highlights janitors’ plight
A movie that may hit close to home for many building service contractors and their employees is Bread and Roses, the American debut by British director Ken Loach.

Bread and Roses chronicles the lives of two illegal Mexican immigrants, Maya (Pilar Padilla) and Rosa (Elpidia Carrillo), who work in janitorial jobs. When they meet Sam (Adrien Brody), a union organizer who convinces them to protest for more rights, they soon find themselves involved in a strike. The film is based in part on the Service Employees International Union’s national Justice for Janitors campaign, which escalated last year with many highly publicized strikes.

Bread and Roses recently was screened at the University of Southern California to celebrate a contract between ServiceMaster and its employees who work at USC. Before the screening, the audience learned about the history of the contract negotiations. The current contract includes a pay increase, health benefits without a co-pay increase and tuition remission for the janitors who worked at USC before the positions were outsourced.

The film was nominated for a Golden Palm award at the Cannes Film Festival, and is set for a May 2001 release in the U.S., according to movies.com. Look for it at a local art theater.


GMB Earns ISO Certification
General Building Maintenance Inc., Atlanta, recently was granted International Organization of Standards (ISO) 9001 certification. The 18-year-old janitorial firm is the first in the Southwest to achieve such certification, according to a news release.

"I wanted to provide a cleaner workplace for our customers and a higher level of pride for my employees," says Sunny Park, owner and CEO, in the release.

The ISO series is considered the premier international quality standard for virtually any standard.

Re-certification is required every three years, and internal quality audits must be performed continuously in order to maintain the system.


Health Care Costs Rise Again
Small businesses suffered a 14 percent increase in health care costs last year, according to the Mercer/Foster Higgins National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans. The National Federation of Independent Business considers this increase a crisis.

"America’s small business owners want to provide health coverage for their employees, but if these skyrocketing costs continue to worsen, many simply will not be able to keep up, and may be forced to drop coverage," says NFIB senior vice president Dan Danner.

Forty percent of employers studied said they will raise employee contribution levels in 2001, and 17 percent will raise deductibles, co-payments and out-of-pocket premiums.
In the February 2001 issue of Contracting Profits, “Contractor Chronicles” columnist Joseph Farley will address the cost and benefits of employee health plans and other benefits.


Mergers & Other Moves

  • The Oreck Corp., New Orleans, will provide facility-protecting covers from Soft Vac™Corp., Silver Spring, Md., with the new Dual Stack™ vacuum. "Oreck was the first vacuum manufacturer to recognize the value of Soft Vac facility-protecting covers. We have offered Soft Vac with our XL® model for years, and we are delighted to provide Soft Vac with our new Dual Stack as well," says Marshal Oreck, executive vice president.

  • Newell Rubbermaid, Freeport, Ill., has combined its Rubbermaid Home Products and Commercial Products cleaning lines into a new division, Rubbermaid Cleaning Products. Patrick W. Brandt was named president of the new division.

  • St. Paul, Minn.-based cleaning products manufacturer Ecolab Inc. has agreed to purchase the remaining 50 percent share of its joint venture with Henkel KGaA, Dusseldorf, Germany. After the transaction, scheduled for early 2002, Ecolab will own 100 percent of Henkel-Ecolab, a company providing cleaning and sanitizing products in Europe.

  • National Chemical Laboratories Inc., a Philadelphia manufacturer of cleaning chemicals, has acquired Dynasurf Corp., Baltimore. Dynasurf is a manufacturer of floor care, carpet care and sanitary maintenance products.


Coverall, Minuteman
Receive Magazine Recognition
Coverall North America Inc., Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has been ranked in Entrepreneur Magazine’s 22nd Annual Franchise 500 for the tenth consecutive year.

For 2001, the company was named the Second Lowest Investment Franchise; initial down payments can be as low as $1,500. Also, the company ranked third in the "Top 30 Fastest-Growing Franchises," and was named 15th overall in the top 100.

The company has more than 5,900 owners worldwide, servicing more than 32,000 customers.

Also, floor-equipment manufacturer Minuteman International Inc., Addison, Ill., recently made Forbes Magazine’s list of the top 200 small businesses in the United States.

The designation is made based on current stock value, growth and earnings.

“I believe it’s truly an honor to be named by such a highly esteemed trade publication as Forbes, and I also think it’s an honor to be a representative of our industry,” says Greg Rau, president and CEO of Minuteman.


Quirky Cleaning News
Cleaning-related news is popping up in some interesting pop-culture places these days. Here’s the latest.

Rating restrooms
Need an incentive to keep your restrooms pristine? If they’re located in a popular, public building in several major cities in the United States and abroad, you may find restroom you clean at besttoilets.com. Users can send in ratings via “Recommend-A-Toilet,” or find out the cleanest commodes at a specific vacation destination. For instance, here’s a four-star review of a bathroom found in Chicago’s Magnificent Mile at the Cheesecake Factory:

“ The Bathroom...is absolutely fantastic! You have an entire room to yourself with lovely music in the background and these bathrooms have a luxery [sic] feel to them ... The restaurant is located downstairs below street level. I've used these toilets many times. It's a very busy place so there is a constant amount of confusion. So you can slip right in.”

Site users also can send an electronic, customized “Toilet Greeting,” featuring photographs of actual rated restrooms. Also, check out the “Toilets as Art” link, featuring an exhibit from the Arts/Industry Program at The John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

Road warriors in immediate need of a pit stop can access besttoilet’s content on their Palm Pilots through YadaYada, a wireless content provider.

Roll-ing with the punches
Star watchers were focusing on pop singer Madonna Dec. 22, when she wed British film director Guy Ritchie in a Scottish fairy-tale wedding. But the folks at Kimberly-Clark’s Away-From-Home Sector were more interested in the officiant than the happy couple.

Church of Scotland minister Susan Brown has a tradition of presenting all couples she marries, celebrity or not, with a symbolic pair of toilet-paper rolls.

“The toilet roll is long and strong, which is what I hope their marriage will be,” Brown has said to news outlets.

To help her out, Kimberly-Clark sent two rolls of toilet paper to Dornoch Cathedral in time for the nuptials — one of which features a wedding-ring print, according to a press release.

No word on whether the paper was given to the newlyweds; the paparazzi were kept behind crowd barriers, and no bath-tissue photos have leaked thus far.




POSTED ON: 1/1/2001