Contending Rationality, Leadership, and Collective Struggle The 2006 Justice for Janitors Campaign at the University of Miami

Building strength within a diverse constellation of social actors, including workers, clergy, faculty, students, and other activists, the Service Employees International Union's spring 2006 Justice for Janitors campaign at the University of Miami helped open a new local space for working-class political contention through an engaged and escalatory organizing and first contract drive. In an effort to empower workers as the base of a larger struggle against the exploitation of Miami's working poor, the campaign drew upon the creativity of workers in shaping and enacting a political agenda toward economic justice while building up Miami's social activist community, including a local chapter of the national Interfaith Worker Justice committee.