As a Year of Struggle Ends, One of Fearful Uncertainty Begins
Charles Gholston, Illinois
“I have to sneak in through the driveway door after work. I go straight to the bathroom, strip and shower, and put my uniform in a garbage bag to be washed—do not pass go, do not collect $200,” says Charles Gholston, a custodian for a public school, as he tries to lay his one-year-old down to sleep (she’s not having it).
“I cannot slip on that routine, because I got daughters. As soon as they see me, they’re like, ‘Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!’ They wanna jump on me,” he says. The 34-year-old father of four works for a family-owned janitorial service, Total Facility Maintenance, that is a contractor for Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the nation’s third-largest school district.
Gholston has been cleaning the city’s schools for the past five years, the last two spent at Ryder Math & Science Specialty Elementary School, located in the South Side neighborhood of Auburn Gresham.
Gholston hasn’t missed a day of work since March. But when Illinois closed its schools, sending children home for remote learning, he felt safer with only staff in the building. The SEIU member has nothing but compliments for his employer, which immediately added a temporary 55 percent bump to his previous $18.24 per hour salary. But that hazard pay ended in June.
“When we got hit, everything happened so suddenly and unexpected. When CPS was slow to bring us proper face masks, our principal went out and bought masks and temperature guns for the school,” Gholston says. “I have a good work family. You suddenly realize how everybody you’re working side by side with plays a role in your being safe. Everyone keeps their face masks up. We all protect each other.”
Gholston and his wife, Jessica Walker, own a home in Crestwood, a suburb southwest of the city. Walker is a CPS teacher’s aide, and like many educators she works from home while simultaneously overseeing her own children’s education. Her husband leaves the house at 4:30 a.m. for his 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. shift. After arriving at the school, he unlocks the doors for everyone, grabs the cart from the custodian closet, and cleans his way through the first floor. The second and third floors belong to two other custodians.
“I sold cars for about 10 years. I was a certified forklift driver for three years, a UPS driver for two, and an overnight stocker at Jewel-Osco for about a year,” Gholston recounts of his journey before following his mother, Darlene Brown, into the cleaning industry. She retired last year after working for Total Facility Maintenance for 23 years.
“I took on this job for multiple reasons. Yes, it has everything to do with taking care of my kids, but also, I feel like I’m making a difference,” he says. “My job doesn’t stop at being a custodian. It goes beyond, to being a big brother or mentor to these kids. You can make a difference in a kid’s life with just a ‘Hello. It’s going to be a great day. You got this! You’re doing good.’ That kid in need of good advice may be the next president.”
But the custodian still worries about Chicago’s uptick in COVID-19 cases—what it means for him and all the children in his life. Blacks, and other people of color, have been contracting and dying from the respiratory disease at disproportionate rates—a consequence epidemiologists have traced to health inequities, including exposure to air pollution, and the structural racism undergirding housing and job patterns. Workers of color are overrepresented in service industries that have been deemed essential—industries without options for social distancing or remote work. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Black employees represented 12 percent of the total U.S. workforce in April but comprised 17 percent of frontline workers.
“I question myself daily, because I’m putting my life on the line every single day I walk up out of my house,” says Gholston. “All I can do is protect myself with PPE.”
In January Chicago’s public schools are set to reopen in phases, and Gholston has a decision to make—whether to send his daughters back to school, two of them to the very building he cleans. He says he’s going to opt for remote learning.
“I want to make sure we all are under the same agenda of making sure kids are protected and safe. I feel like with everything that’s going on, now is not the time to be sending these kids back into these buildings. Once I see how we are conducting ourselves—hopefully, like we are in a pandemic—I’d be more likely to send my kids back,” says Gholston.
“As for work, I’m on the front lines. I’ll be here.”
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