Corporate greedheads give in; janitors strike ends

After the appallingly bad publicity associated with the police crackdown (and additional unconscionable behavior by an assistant Harris County district attorney) on striking janitors over the weekend, the companies involved settled with the SEIU and the five-week-long strike came to an end today.

Bill White made sure he got some of the credit. Not for forcibly clearing the intersections of the city, but for "making many phone calls behind the scenes" to bring the strike to a close.

I call bullshit (until I hear differently from people in the union). White was out to lunch for the last month -- as he has been on nearly every issue requiring even the slightest confrontation during the past year. ( Let's do give him credit for taking on that badass Jordy Tollett, though.) The mayor is doing almost as good a job of wasting his political capital as George W. Bush. Oh, and FWIW, unnamed sources on a "blog" -- especially a corporate media-owned one -- don't impress me much.

And Miya Shay really sucks at blogging, too. Somehow though, she managed to get at least two of the more progressive Texas blogs to pick up on her meme that the strike was pointless. Nice going, fellas. Something about that reminds me of the Texas Democratic Party making sure everyone understands well in advance that they can't win a statewide election.

So if you work in an H-Town office building, thank the person who cleans your bathroom and empties your trash and mops your floor. They won a small victory for their families today against the formidable forces of our local Fortune 100's greed, not to mention surviving the thuggery of Houston's Finest.

Houston's business and governmental leaders distinguished themselves in this matter. Not in a good way.