Change to Win unions are standing up to Cintas in our Uniform Justice campaign.

• Cintas is the most profitable uniform and laundry company in North America.¹
• In 2004, Cintas had sales of $3 billion and profits of $300 million.
• Cintas has had 36 years of consecutive growth.

• Most production workers report wages between $7 and $9 an hour.  This wage puts many of these families below the poverty line.
• This wage is between 41% and 54% below the national housing wage of $15.37, the amount of money one needs to earn to afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment.²
• This wage is also lower than the income needed to keep a family of four above the federal poverty line: $20,000, or an average of $9.62 an hour.³
• In Hayward, California, a judge ruled that Cintas broke the city's living wage laws by paying workers as much as $2 per hour less than required. Cintas has been ordered to pay $800,000 in back wages plus interest to 220 low-wage laundry workers.⁴

• CEO Scott Farmer received nearly $2.5 million in compensation in 2005 ($801,300 in salary and bonuses and $1,675,820 worth of stock options).⁵
• Farmer's compensation amounted to about $6,800 a day. So in three days Farmer made more than the average Cintas worker earned that year.
• Cintas Chairman and founder Richard Farmer ranks 606th on the 2006 Forbes billionaires list with a reported worth of $1.3 billion.⁶
• The Cintas corporate jet landed in Key Largo, Fla., two dozen times over six months in late 2004 and early 2005. Chairman Farmer owns a house valued at nearly $6 million there, and often plays golf nearby. Each trip costs an estimated $18,000).⁷

• Current and former employees have filed three class-action lawsuits charging that Cintas discriminates against women and minority employees by denying them promotions and shunting them into lower-paying, less desirable jobs.
• “After a review of the available evidence, EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] has determined that there is sufficient and reasonable basis to believe that Cintas discriminates against women in the recruitment and hiring of sales drivers,” stated the General Counsel of the EEOC in joining onto one of the class action lawsuits.⁸
• The EEOC is investigating Cintas for failure to hire and assign women to certain production positions and failure to hire and assign women, African Americans and Latinos into the company’s management program.
• In Painesville, Ohio, General Manager Al Kocsis directed his white managers and supervisors to hire “people who look like you and me” because Latinos “don’t share our values” and “don’t come from the same culture.”
• Darold Maxfield, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, has sued Cintas for violating the Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Act claiming that he was fired because he took too-frequent military leaves from work.⁹

• OSHA has found over 170 violations of health and safety standards at Cintas since January 1, 2003. Seventy violations were so grave that they could cause “death or serious physical harm.” OSHA assessed nearly $190,000 in initial penalties and found multiple violations in 31 of the 42 inspections in this time period – a 75% percent rate of failure by Cintas.
• OSHA assessed over $30,000 in penalties for “repeat” violations, an exacting OSHA standard that requires a violation of the identical paragraph of a standard within the last three years in states with federal enforcement (or within the same state for those with state enforcement).
• Two workers have been killed at Cintas facilities in recent years, while another was scalded over much of his body when a washer overflowed.”¹⁰
• Cintas was sued by the State of Connecticut for over 900 violations of its wastewater permit and spills into the Branford River. Cintas agreed to a $450,000 penalty – the largest in state history – and new rules to protect workers and the community.”¹¹

• Cintas has not paid overtime to thousands of drivers nationwide. More than 2,400 drivers are suing Cintas for $100 million claiming that it has violated federal and state wage laws.”¹²
• Cintas already paid California drivers $10 million to settle claims that they were denied overtime.¹³
• The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled that a company policy prohibiting workers from talking about their wages and working conditions is illegal.
• The NLRB is currently charging Cintas with illegally disciplining union supporters, threatening workers with plant closures, and unlawful interrogations.
• The NLRB is seeking to revoke a previous settlement at a Cintas facility because the agency is charging new illegal activity by Cintas management, which violates Cintas’ prior agreement not to obstruct workers’ rights.¹⁴
• Cintas has agreed to pay $25,000 in back pay to settle an employee’s charge that she was fired for union activity.
• In the past two years Cintas has settled dozens of other charges of violating workers’ rights and Cintas’ anti-union consultant, Craft Baressi, also settled with the NLRB on charges it violated labor law.

1. www.uniformjustice.org. This website is the source for all facts except those with specific endnotes.
2. National Low Income Housing Coalition, "Out of Reach 2005."
3. "2006 Federal Poverty Guidelines," Federal Register, Vol. 71, No. 15, Jan. 24, 2006, pp. 3848-3849.
4. Henry K. Lee, “Judge Upholds City’s Living-wage Ordinance,” San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 27/, 2005 (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/27/BAG4OEUHMR1.DTL&hw=cintas+hayward&sn=001&sc=1000)
   Amaral et al v. Cintas Corp; Order Re: Motion to Bifurcate and Cross Motions for Summary Judgment or Summary Adjudication; HG03 103046; Superior Court of the State of CA, County of Alameda.
5. Cintas Corporation, 2005 Proxy Statement, SEC form 14-A, Sept. 1, 2005.
6. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/Rank_25.html
7. Mark Maremont, “Jet Green: The CEO’s private golf shuttle,” Wall Street Journal, p. A1; Oct. 1, 2005.
8. Ramirez et al v. Cintas Corp; EEOC’s Motion for Leave to Intervene; C04-0281-JSW; USDC; Northern Dist. of CA.
9. “LR reservist deserves jury trial, judges rule,” Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Nov. 1, 2005.
10. See http://www.osha.gov/cgi-bin/est/est, search term Cintas.
11. Arthur J. Roque, Jr., Commissioner of Environmental Protection v. Cintas Corp., Connecticut Superior Court, Judicial District of Hartford, Case No. CV-97-0575974-S. Kim Martineau, “Laundry firm makes concessions for DEP permit” The Hartford Courant, Aug. 11, 2005.
12. http://www.cintasovertime.com/documents.html
13. Vaca et al v. Cintas.
14. NLRB, Region 4, ORDER PARTIALLY REVOKING INFORMAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT, CONSOLIDATING CASES, CONSOLIDATED COMPLAINT AND NOTICE OF HEARING, Sept. 29, 2005.

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Learn more about Cintas' abuses in UNITE HERE's fact sheet, Cintas: Silencing Workers’ Voices, Disregarding Workers’ Rights (PDF).