Office janitors are planning to picket at buildings across the Twin Cities metro Monday morning to kick off a three-day strike after SEIU Local 26 and cleaning companies failed to reach a contract agreement by this weekend.

The picketing will start what SEIU is calling a "week of action," which will include rallies at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the state Capitol and other events meant to draw attention to the bargaining divide for those janitors, as well as nursing home workers and teachers planning strikes of their own.

new SEIU said contracts are expired for more than 5,000 office and airport janitors and workers at more than 100 buildings and no tentative master-contract agreement was reached by a Saturday deadline with ABM Industries, Marsden Services, Harvard Services and dozens of other cleaning subcontractors.

The union is also planning a 5 p.m. rally Monday outside the Ameriprise Financial Center.

Last week, roughly 500 janitors who clean big-box retailers like Target, Best Buy and Cub Foods struck a last-minute deal, along with 2,000 security guards. Those agreements include increased pay and retirement benefits. For retail janitors, it would mean a bump in starting wages from $14.50 to $17 an hour over the life of the contract.

However, those contracts don't cover 4,000 SEIU members who clean downtown offices and at the airport and another roughly 1,000 people who provide other services at MSP. Bargaining has stretched for months, and SEIU said in a news release Sunday that a final session last Friday went late into the evening. The next meeting is scheduled for Friday.

Also on Monday, SEIU said workers and Minneapolis council members would speak out before a public hearing on a Labor Standards Board that would study and recommend new workplace regulations to the council and Mayor Jacob Frey.

On Tuesday, employees at nursing homes represented by SEIU's health care chapter and UFCW 663 expect to rally and picket at a St. Louis Park facility and later at the state Capitol as part of a one-day strike.

Then on Wednesday, janitors and airport workers will rally at the airport, and on Friday, teachers with the St. Paul Federation of Educators and members of other unions have planned a march to the Capitol.

The teachers union in St. Paul authorized a strike date of March 11, though the school district hopes to pursue binding arbitration to reach a new two-year contract without a strike. Minneapolis public works employees in late February also authorized a strike.

SEIU leaders said pay is one of the biggest issues for its members, arguing wages have not kept up with inflation. An attorney representing 10 commercial janitorial employers said last week the union was making extraordinary demands and that wages were already industry-leading.