S.F. janitors fighting for better safety, pay
Employers rejecting demands in contract talks, union says
Ramiro Rodriguez says his 33 years as a janitor cleaning San Francisco offices helped his three kids, now grown, receive educations and get ahead in life. But now Rodriguez, 58, fears that his $21.80 an hour job could jeopardize his health through exposure to COVID19.
He’s among some 5,000 union janitors, largely immigrants and people of color, who clean the majority of San Francisco office buildings and are negotiating a new contract. They say building managers are rejecting their pleas for higher wages and greater safety. But the janitors’ employers say they are committed to protecting their workers’ health and safety, even while they must cope with a sagging economy.
Janitors consider themselves on the front lines during the pandemic — working to clean and disinfect spaces — even while they say they’re treated as secondclass citizens.
About 2,000 of the janitors from SEIU Local 87 have continued to vacuum floors, scrub bathrooms and sort trash in city offices throughout the past year. At least 26 of those workers have died of COVID19, according to their union. Meanwhile, another 3,000 have been laid off since the onset of shelter in place.
“It’s an environmental justice issue,” said Olga Miranda, president of SEIU Local 87, which is organizing a protest Monday to march and caravan to downtown buildings where janitors who died of the virus were working. She wonders whether buildings turn off their ventilation systems after tenants go home, leaving the nightshift janitors with poor air flow.
“The janitors who are responsible for hygiene and cleanliness are not being given proper equipment to keep the buildings clean, and they are not being taken care of,” Miranda said, adding that the union wants employers to upgrade filtration systems and keep them on at night.
Building managers disputed that allegation.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, member companies have spent nearly $1.5 million on gloves, masks, goggles, hand sanitizer, disinfectants, Tyvek suits and other COVID19 related items for our workers,” said a statement from the San Francisco Maintenance Contractors Association, a coalition of companies that hire the majority of office janitors in the city.
“We have provided robust, expertbacked training in the proper use of PPE and virus protection, (and) have maintained social distancing through revised business operations,” the statement said.
Rodriguez said he does not feel taken care of.
“It’s scary to work because we don’t have the support necessary to do the job safely,” he said in Spanish through an interpreter. “We don’t have masks, gloves, sanitizer as a regular supply. They give us one mask every two or three months.”
Rodriguez said his nightshift hours were cut to 25 a week, “which hit my paycheck really hard,” making it a scramble to cover expenses. He lives with his wife, who still has her nanny job, daughter and sisterinlaw.
The union said its members clean more than 600 buildings, including the offices of Salesforce, Twitter, Google, Airbnb, Amazon and Facebook. Those companies do not directly hire janitors. Instead the cleaners are hired by companies called “maintenance contractors,” such as ABM, Able, Cleanarama and Genesis.
The union wants wage increases of $1.25 an hour for each of the next two years. Janitors now start at $17.29 an hour and top out at $21.80 an hour.
It also wants health insurance to continue to be fully paid, and two additional sick days and protection from onthejob harassment. Currently workers with less than 11 years service get six sick days a year, while those with 12 years or more get 8 days a year.
“Our bargaining proposals have included wage and benefit increases aimed at preserving the historically high wages and benefits earned by San Francisco janitors, while taking into account the unprecedented effects of COVID19 on the economy,” the Maintenance Contractors Association said.
Another big issue for the union: making sure that all laidoff janitors can return to work. The union said employers are guaranteeing a right to return only for people with 25 years of service, who account for only about 450 of the 3,000 laidoff janitors.
“We want nothing more than to return to prepandemic staffing levels in San Francisco,” the Maintenance Contractors Association said. “Janitors on layoff status currently have their seniority protected, during which they would be offered a return to their prior position as soon that position becomes available again.”
But the reality is that as companies pare back their real estate if staffs continue to work remotely, many janitorial jobs could vanish. A reduction in professional office time “will mean steep declines in demand for building cleaning, security, and maintenance service,” wrote MIT scholars David Autor and Elisabeth Reynolds in a Brookings Institution paper called “The Nature of Work After the COVID Crisis: Too Few Low-Wage Jobs.”
Gloria Espinoza, 49, was laid off in April from her nightshift janitor job. Her husband was laid off from a security guard job. They share a Richmond district apartment with two other couples to save money.
“Sometimes it is really hard to make some ends meet,” she said in Spanish through an interpreter. “Looking for where to find some extra cash to pay bills is a struggle now.”
She’s fearful about possible contagion, even while she worries that she might not have a job to return to.
“I have health concerns about social distancing and proper PPE,” she said. “The companies (that manage buildings) care about the safety of their tenants; they don’t care about our safety.”
And she’d like to get a raise.
“They are not offering anything in wages, but we are not living in abundance and the cost of living is going up,” she said.