WARWICK, R.I. - Janitors at T.F. Green Airport are launching a major push to improve wages and benefits at Rhode Island's main airport.

The workers have signed union cards and enlisted the Service Employees International Union to help lobby the state Airport Corporation to support better pay. Earlier this month, they flooded the corporation's board meeting to plead their case.

But the campaign is complicated by the fact that the airport subcontracts its janitorial work to UNICCO, a maintenance company that employs the workers. Given intense market competition, lobbying the middle man for better pay and benefits is not always an effective tactic, said SEIU Local 615 representative Roxana Rivera. It is difficult to change middle-man policies without the support of corporations like the airport.

Nationwide, industry standards for janitors are typically low - wages are meager and health insurance is rare. In Rhode Island, only contracted janitors in Providence have a collective bargaining agreement. If a company such as UNICCO were to agree to offer their workers better pay and benefits, Rivera speculated, they would stand to lose the air port contract to a lower bidder when the contract expires this fall.

So the SEIU is lobbying the Airport Corporation to improve standards from the top down, pressing for officials to include contract language stipulating that any company wishing to offer janitorial services at the airport must pay its workers a living wage and offer health insurance and a degree of job stability. In other words, the union is asking airport officials to invest more in janitorial services.

"We understand that they are contracting out the work, but ultimately, it's the client that hires and fires the contractor, and in the end, that means the client needs to ensure that certain standards are kept," Rivera said.