'We lived it': nightshift janitors lead fight to prevent sexual assault on the job
Anabella Aguirre has spent 19 years working in the janitorial industry in Los Angeles, California, since she came to the US from Guatemala. While working the night shift, Aguirre was raped by her supervisor and sexually assaulted a year later at a different work site.
In the midst of an epidemic of sexual harassment, rape and sexual assault facing nightshift janitors, Aguirre and dozens of other janitors in California are fighting back to enact into law sexual harassment and sexual violence prevention training led by the workers themselves.
“I am through what happened,” said Aguirre, who is also now a trained selfdefense instructor. “I am not just a survivor and I have the ability to be a teacher for my fellow colleagues, especially as an immigrant and as a woman, these things are part of my empowerment and ability to help others and actually change the culture.”
After the release of a 2015 PBS Frontline documentary, Rape On the Night Shift, the Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, which represents more than 25,000 janitors throughout California, conducted a survey of union members’ experiences of sexual harassment. Nearly half of the 5,000 workers who responded reported experiencing sexual harassment or sexual assault on the job, and additional 25% witnessed it.
A May 2016 report conducted by the Labor Occupational Health Program at University of California-Berkeley, found industry dysfunction in janitorial services contributed to low wages and persistent hazards exposing workers to risks of sexual harassment, rape and sexual assault, and few resources are available or utilized by subcontractor janitorial services to prevent and stop sexual harassment and sexual violence.
The report noted that the frequency of sexual harassment, rape and sexual assault of janitors is not well documented, due in large part to underreporting, but surveys that have been conducted demonstrate a widespread problem throughout the industry.
Since the SEIU-USWW survey, rank and file union members launched the Ya Basta! campaign. With the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, a California-based watchdog organization that supports non-unionized janitors, the SEIU-USWW partnered with the East LA Women’s Center to train janitors as “promotoras”, or community educators, focused on ending sexual harassment and sexual violence in janitorial workplaces. Nearly 100 janitors are currently trained as
promotoras, ready to start going into workplaces to conduct trainings with fellow workers.
“I’m a rape survivor. Like myself, a lot of my colleagues and co-workers are also survivors of rape and sexual assault in the workplace,” said Carmen Sanchez, a janitorial worker for nine years. “Only us janitors know exactly where these attacks can happen and who these attacks can come from. We’re the only ones who know what working alone at night is like, in places that are completely isolated, darkened, and we’re the only ones who know how those conditions make us vulnerable for these kinds of attacks to happen.”
Sanchez explained the trainings have helped her heal and move forward as a survivor and she wants the training to be implemented into law so that she can help her co-workers become empowered and heal in a way that is most comfortable for them to do so.
In 2016, these workers successfully pushed the passage of a California state bill, assembly bill 1978, that mandated all janitorial service contractors register with the state and provide sexual harassment prevention training to all employees by 1 January 2020. California janitorial workers have gone on marches and hunger strikes, and led protest actions at California’s capital to advocate for legislative action.
Now rank-and-file members are pushing for the California governor, Gavin Newsom, to sign assembly bill 547, the Janitor Survivor Empowerment Act, into law after it passed the state assembly and senate earlier this month. Newsom has until 13 October to sign or veto the bill.
The bill would require janitorial employers to provide biennial, inperson sexual violence and harassment prevention training for janitorial workers from a list of qualified organizations and trainers.
“These women were speaking out about abuse and sexual harassment in the workplace long before the #MeToo movement made this front page news,” said California assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez-Fletcher, author of AB 547, said. “We worked with them in 2016 to pass AB 1978, which increased workplace protections in the janitorial industry. Now, AB 547 is the next step – and it’s the second year we’ve introduced this bill.”
“We professional janitor women know exactly what people go through on a daily basis because we have lived through it and that makes us the best candidates to conduct these trainings,” said Veronica Lagunas, a janitorial worker for 15 years and bargaining committee member with SEIU-USWW. “We are human and we are facing these things and fighting because we believe we can change things. We deserve rights, support, and access to the tools we know can create change.”
Lagunas explained workers themselves are best equipped to provide training on sexual harassment and sexual violence prevention, rather than consultants or human resource departments who operate in the best interests of the employers, not workers.
“There are mandated trainings across the country. None that we have found are done by professional peer-topeer advocates,” said SEIU-USWW secretary-treasurer Alejandra Valles. “It’s a one of a kind model.”
Martha Mejia, a janitorial worker in California for 14 years and a trained promotora emphasized the need to address sexual harassment, rape and assault in a preventative way.
“We don’t want to focus on what happens after people already commit assault, rape, or harassment in the workplace,” she said. “We recognize on a cultural level we have to start working from a preventative perspective and we are the best people to render solutions.”
Only us janitors know exactly where these attacks can happen and who these attacks can come from. We’re the only ones who know what working alone at night is like