Some Tech Companies Step Up to Help Janitors and end strike!

[Omaha Steve]

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/cassidy/2008/05/28/some-tech-companies-step-up-to-help-janitors/

By Mike Cassidy
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 3:56 pm in In The News, Silicon Valley Business, Silicon Valley Life, Stories Behind the Column.

It appears that some Silicon Valley tech companies did the right thing and got involved in the negotiations between striking janitors and the third-party cleaning companies that contract to clean the valley’s corporate campuses.




My column on Tuesday criticized the tech giants for outsourcing their moral responsibility to the janitors along with their cleaning needs. While the details of the janitors’ new deal are not entirely clear, today I’d like to praise those companies that apparently did indeed step up. (There’s a small complication there, which I’ll get to.)

The union representing the janitors said the workers approved a new contract today that will raise their pay by $2.40 an hour over the four-year contract. Most janitors currently make $11 an hour, according to the Service Employees International Union Local 1877, which represents the janitors.

More importantly, in a statement announcing the settlement SEIU local president Mike Garcia said that a number of high-tech companies chose to go beyond the minimums in the new contract and see to it that janitors cleaning their offices see bigger pay raises and quicker access to health care benefits.

“Some companies are showing the leadership and innovation that Silicon Valley is known for by creating this new high-tech standard,” Garcia said in the statement. “With the rising cost of housing, gas, food and other basic necessities, it’s only right that janitors who work hard now have a career ladder to move into higher paying worksites by seniority.”

The companies’ assurances mean that about 500 of the janitors represented by the union will be eligible for a career ladder that could mean pay increases of as much as 31 percent — rather than the just negotiated 22 percent increase in the new contract, the SEIU press releases says.

It also means those janitors would be eligible for health benefits after six months on the job. Family coverage would kick in after a year. The standard agreement approved today reduces the wait from family coverage to 18 months from two and a half years.

The complication with praising the tech companies that took the lead? According to the union, they want to remain anonymous. In general the tech companies have for years argued that they have no part in the negotiations. The tech companies have argued that they only hire the companies that hire the janitors. What those contractors pay the janitors is entirely up to them.

No doubt the companies that changed course would rather that not get around too far or too fast. Who knows who would next be asking them to step up and do the right thing.

(Photo by Mercury News photographer Dai Sugano)