Officials from the companies have said they have contingency plans ready if the janitors go on strike. Maybe I'm too much of an economist. I believe that the federal government sets minimum wage legislation. I don't believe in wages in the sense of being fair or unfair. Wages are set by markets.
Unions intervene in markets by having labor power, which they can sometimes use to get wages up.
Bienen also addressed the direct hiring of janitors as opposed to using contracted janitors. While union organizers have said NU contracts out for janitorial services to save money, Bienen said contractors save NU the time and trouble involved with labor negotiations. What the unions and probably the companies would like to do would be to put us back in the middle of all these things. If we wanted to be in the middle of all these things, we would just have our own employees.