Latino Janitors lose out by Sybase subcontracting

Latino Janitors Fired, Successful Company Increasing Profits at Janitors Expense; Joining Increasing Corporate Trend in Subcontracting, Outsourcing & Privatization
By Francisco Flores
Ten of 15 janitors were fired after Sybase, Inc., based in Dublin, contracted Excel Building Services, a non-union company, for its janitorial services. Sybase is one of the largest independent software vendors in the world. Some business journals designate Sybase as one of the best places to work in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area.
When the Sybase janitors’ health insurance went up, Sybase dumped its union janitors. Hourly pay is $9.16 p/h. The janitors are losing all they have struggled for when the client chose the lowest bidder. On Excel’s first day on the job, April 1st, 2004 they fired their first worker. After the first month, the non-union janitorial contractor came up with various excuses to remove 10 of the 15 workers. One was that their social security numbers was a ‘no match’ meaning that the name didn’t match the numbers. Giachino responded that ‘no match’ numbers don’t necessarily mean illegal immigration but simply that there is an error.
The company also eliminated the fully employer paid health benefits for their families after the workers had had just won them in 2003, it refused to recognize the union, SEIU Local 1877, and is breaking the Displaced Janitor Opportunity Act (SB20) which requires worker retention for a minimum of sixty days. At Sybase, janitors were put on the street in less than a month.

Maria Villalobos, janitor at Sybase and a family woman, was laid off due to union activity she had worked at the company four years. Resisting the Excel measures, Villalobos was distributing informational leaflets, when her supervisor approached and informed her that her identification was expired and she could not enter the building. She was trying to gain the support of the Sybase office workers, informing them of what Sybase and Excel were doing. Initially, Excel accepted all the janitors, when the janitors inquired about the benefits they were informed that their INS documents would have to be presented before they qualify for benefits. Villalobos says she lives right, pays taxes doesn’t get government help and needs justice.
The Excel strategy was to cut costs by eliminating their health plan and increasing the workload. When the workers resisted they were threatened by asking for immigration documents because the janitors were mostly Latino. According to Alisa Giachino, a SEIU organizer, Sybase, a successful prestigious company, “was ‘nickel-n-diming’ the lowest paid workers in order to make money.”
On May 27, workers held a rally to notify and gain support from other workers. At the rally, police were called in, threatened to call the immigration authorities and, at one point, a police officer pulled out a gun at people who were peacefully legally leafleting and rallying. Giachino said that this is, “Labor organizing, (that) rallying, and leafleting are not an immigration issues. The police response displays sympathy for Sybase and a prejudice against the janitors because looked like immigrants and spoke Spanish.” And the writer might add, a language spoken in the US before English. Giachino explains that, Sybase is undermining industry standards by bringing in a company that offers inferior medical coverage and taking those costs out of workers ”meager wages.”

The solution, according to SEIU is that Sybase should hire a responsible union contractor that will respect the workers’ right to organize for health care, job security, and a voice at work through collective bargaining.

On their web site, The United Electrical Workers explain that the latest management fad to increase profits is outsourcing, subcontracting, and privatization. Employers are always trying to increase profits. The easiest way to do this is to cut workers' pay and benefits, or make workers work more hours per week. However, in the 1990’s the drive to increase profits by subcontracting has hit an all-time high. Unless the contract specifically prohibits subcontracting, arbitrators have increasingly found for the employer. Nike, the shoe manufacturer, has been condemned for subcontracting to companies that use child labor or pay workers 10 cents per hour.

Recently, immigrant janitors working for a subcontractor filed suit against Wal-mart claiming that Wal-mart used contractors to circumvent basic labor law protections. The workers are paid as little as $6.30 an hour, receive no health care coverage, vacation pay, or other benefits. UPS is the second major company in the United States to come under scrutiny for its subcontractor’s violation of employees’ rights. SEIU announced that workers filed suit in Chicago District Court against a United Parcel Service subcontractor for regularly and routinely failing to pay overtime to the mostly immigrant janitors.

One of the plaintiffs, Gloria Vega, was never paid overtime despite working six days a week, eight hours a day for three and a half years. Another worker wasn’t paid overtime despite the long hours she put in cleaning the facility, even though she often worked two straight eight-hour shifts in the same day on top of her six-day workweek.

In light of the subcontracting trend, hundreds of immigrant janitors and their supporters marched to the Department of Justice to protest Attorney General John Ashcroft policies that hurt hard-working immigrants. Ashcroft proposed to use local police for immigration enforcement that would result in increased harassment and racial profiling for all immigrant communities and reverse the Justice Department long-standing opinion that Federal agents and the Immigration and Naturalization Service should handle such cases.

Eliseo Medina, SEIU Vice President points out that the recent raids on 61 Wal-Mart stores Oct. 28, 2003 in 21 states underscores the fact that President Bush spends billions of dollars arresting and deporting tax-paying immigrants, but then provides bottom-line corporations like Wal-Mart with tax cuts. Medina says, “Rounding up hard-working immigrants and throwing them in jail won't get our economy moving again.”
Supporters are asked to call John Chen Sybase CEO at 9255 236 5000. To reach Alisa Giachino call 510 553 1877 ext. 176