Three window cleaners arrested as protest highlights safety concerns (3 dead in 3 years)

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4425

Three window cleaners arrested as protest highlights safety concerns
By Steve Share, Labor Review editor
5 April 2010

MINNEAPOLIS - As an employer lockout of window cleaners entered a second week, three of the locked-out workers risked arrest Monday in a protest to call attention to safety concerns. With video.


Window cleaners used safety harnesses to tie themselves together before engaging in an act of civil disobedience.

Photo by Steve Share

Shrill whistles disturbed lunchtime in the food court at Gavidae Common in downtown Minneapolis as members and supporters of Service Employees International Union Local 26 took dramatic action to highlight the window cleaners’ calls for improved workplace safety.

The group of about 25 people blew whistles and chanted, “How many deaths does it take for window cleaners to be safe?”

They unfurled two banners, one reading “window cleaner safety now” and the other memorializing Fidel Sanchez-Flores, a window cleaner who fell to his death two years ago.

Three window cleaners put on their work harnesses and sat down in an act of civil disobedience to risk arrest. View video.

The group’s chanting and whistles continued for several minutes while Dino Crandall, Travis Schneider, and James Miller waited for security guards and police to take action. Crandall and Miller are window cleaners working for Building Maintenance / Final Touch while Schneider is a window cleaner who works for Columbia.


Supporters cheered the three window cleaners for taking a stand as they are led from the building to a police wagon.

Photo by Rafael Morataya

FULL story and video at link.