Research kingpin Chris Pyke, Ph.D., of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) finally resigned yesterday evening in the wake of an ongoing controversy dubbed “GUID-gate” by the New York Times, which has called it “the largest data-standardization scandal in the history of the Existing Commercial Buildings Working Group.”

Click Here to read the entire article by Maple Anlout

Franchises don't work. The model itself is flawed. When you are looking for a cleaning service, do your homework. To get the best possible service at the best possible price, you need to do business with a "real company".

Below is an article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Fortune 500 Company Takes Advantage of the American Dream

A Texas Corporation that was ranked highly in Entrepreneur's 
Franchise 500 is preying on Americans looking to build their own  business, and live the "American Dream." Bonus Building Care sells  cleaning franchises with grand promises of success, leading potential  buyers to believe that they can make a good living as their own boss.

Bonus Building Care uses the "American Dream" ideal to scam honest  citizens out of their life savings and make then indentured servants.  Hopeful entrepreneurs are told that with a minimal investment starting  around $5,000, they can be turning a healthy profit within a year. Bonus Building Care not only sells the franchise itself, but also each  individual cleaning account. Franchisees are forced to pay monthly fees  on any cleaning account they are given for a period of one year. These  fees are supposedly an investment towards "owning" each account, but  right around the one year mark, the account is taken from the franchisee and replaced with another, forcing them to remain in the vicious cycle  of paying for cleaning accounts that they will never truly own. The  excessive fees make it very difficult, if not impossible, for any franchisee to earn minimum wage, much less turn a profit. While their  current franchises struggle to make ends meet, Bonus Building Care  continues to sell new franchises and grow richer.
 
A nationwide class action lawsuit has been filed in the Western  District of Missouri against Bonus Building Care on behalf of the  victims (4:13 CV-00663). The lawsuit charges Bonus Building Care, along  with several other defendants, with Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt  Organizations (RICO) Act violations and
seeks damages and justice for  the plaintiffs.

By Fortman Law

This is a continuation of the Blog Post on Dirty Dealings in Chicago, from the post on December 10, 2012.

After a long public battle and weeks of protests, the janitorial  contract  at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport changed hands in late 2012. Some reports claimed the move was based on relationships between the  new contracted company and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. But no matter the reason, the shift arguably displaced over 300 workers that were part of the Service Employees International
Union (SEIU).

In exchange for those SEIU employees, The Chicago Sun-Times
reports that the new custodial workers at the airport will now be
part of the  Teamsters. The move raises eyebrows once again, since the Teamsters were one of the few unions that supported Emanuel’s 2011 mayoral campaign.

As reported the Sun-Times, SEIU leaders — who were neutral
in the  2011 mayor’s race and have since criticized Emanuel frequently — filed a complaint Thursday with the National Labor Relations Board.
 
They say  the city’s new airport janitorial contractor, United Maintenance Cos.  Inc., “unlawfully coerced” its airport employees to become Teamsters.

Nora Kelley, chief of staff at SEIU Local 1, said United Maintenance and city officials refused to arrange access to the workers for SEIU to try to organize them. “Instead, they granted preferential access” to the  Teamsters, Kelley said.

A representative for United Maintenance did say that the company’s  O’Hare workers voted last week to join Teamsters Local 727 and that city officials played no role in the negotiations.

Asked about charges that City Hall favored the Teamsters, Emanuel  spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton replied in an email that the matter is “a  dispute between two labor organizations.” She added that the city 
“supports the rights of the employees of United Maintenance to bargain collectively.”

This article is from CleanLink News on 04/15/2013