Janitors who work in the San Francisco Bay Area at some of the world's best-known technology companies, including Cisco, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo, and Oracle, walked out on strike Tuesday to protest the low wages they are paid by the contractors who act as middlemen between the janitors and the tech titans.
How low are those wages, you ask?
It would take more than 77% of a Bay Area janitor's wages to pay rent on a one-bedroom apartment in San Jose, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development fair market rates FY2008.
Bay Area janitors currently earn wages so low that they do not even account for half of what the Economic Policy Institute says it takes to meet basic needs for a family of four, or $54,000 annually. A janitor would need to work 112 hours a week to support their family on the current wages.
Silicon Valley now leads the nation in average median income, but the janitors' wages fall far below their counterparts in other U.S. cities (New York janitors earn $20.25; San Francisco janitors earn $17.05; Chicago janitors earn $14.20; Silicon Valley janitors earn $11.04).
Yesterday the strikers took their call for a living wage to the annual shareholders' meeting of computer chip giant Intel:
Striking janitors are demonstrating outside the Intel shareholder’s meeting this morning in Mountain View as concerned investors inside question the company’s policies on issues that affect working families.
“Nobody likes to patronize or work for a company that allows its workers to be exploited,” said Jack Ucciferri, of Harrington Investments, Inc. located in Napa, CA. “Responsible investors are troubled by evidence that certain companies are unable to recognize and fairly reward the value provided by the most vulnerable workers, because it reveals a poor understanding of where value lies within a corporation. It is in our company's interest to promptly address this in a way that does not compromise our public image or employee morale.”
And today they are marching on Stanford University -- the alma mater of the founders of many of tech's biggest companies, including HP, Yahoo! and Google:
Janitors will lead a march from the impoverished neighborhoods of East Palo Alto to the gates of the prestigious Stanford University tomorrow to call attention to the area’s dramatic income gap. The march to “Close the Gap” comes as janitors who currently are paid an average of only $347 a week—just $23,000 annually—are continuing to walk off the job throughout the Bay Area.
Despite servicing some of the most profitable industries and office properties in the state— including Oracle, Cisco Systems, Bishop Ranch, HP, Yahoo, and City Center—Silicon Valley/Bay Area janitors earn less than half of what it takes to survive in California and must wait as long as 2 1/2 years to receive health care. Area janitors are paid far less than janitors doing the same work earn in San Francisco, New York, and Chicago.
Attention techies in the Bay Area: are you comfortable knowing that the people who keep your workspaces clean and tidy have to fight just to earn enough to cover their rent and put food on the table for their family? If not, now would be a great time to mention that to your corporate masters...