Facility managers take note: A unionized cleaning staff can come with a hefty price tag attached to your operating budget.

In the end, individual managers will have to determine if that price tag for their unionized workers is a bargain, especially after comparing their labor costs to that of lower-paid, nonunion workers.

Nearly 30 percent of facility managers responding to Cleaning & Maintenance Management's 1998 In-House Survey say their entire cleaning staff is unionized. Workers in unionized facilities are paid noticeably higher wages than their nonunion colleagues.

For example, new employees in unionized facilities were paid about 32 percent more than new cleaning workers at nonunionized facilities. The wage gap between established workers at unionized and nonunionized facilities was even greater - 40.6 percent - say the survey respondents. Shift supervisors at unionized facilities receive an average hourly wage nearly 34 percent higher than their counterparts at nonunionized facilities, say managers.

The figures account for labor consuming a greater percentage of operating costs at unionized facilities. Facility managers responding to the survey note that labor costs represented an average of 67.7 percent of total operating costs in nonunionized facilities. In facilities with a completely unionized staff, that figure is 71.9 percent.

At first glance, it seems that facilities with a unionized staff may be more susceptible to cost-cutting measures such as outsourcing, a cyclical trend in the cleaning maintenance industry that is now on the rise.

When in-house labor costs begin to or consistently increase, various cost-cutting measures are considered, such as contracting out cleaning operations to outside contract cleaners. Outsourcing often eliminates expenses such as wages and overtime, fringe benefits, payroll and personnel processing costs, cleaning supplies and equipment, training, and worker's compensation and liability insurance premiums.

However, recognizing that unionized workers are being paid higher wages is understanding only part of the story.

According to the 1997 and 1998 CMM In-House surveys, nonunion wages - while significantly lower than union wages - have risen at a faster rate than union wages over the last year. The survey shows that, while the average starting wage for unionized cleaning workers remained constant from 1997 to 1998 ($8.96 per hour), the average starting wage for nonunionized employees rose 5.6 percent.

The typical established unionized worker on an in-house cleaning staff received a 2.2 percent raise during the same period, while a nonunionized counterpart got a 2.5 percent pay increase. Shift supervisors on nonunionized cleaning staffs saw hourly wages rise by an average of 3.5 percent. Unionized shift supervisors saw an average increase of 2.9 percent.