Issued April 30, 2008

LOS ANGELES - As contracts covering more than 16,000 California janitors expired this week, thousands of janitors marched and rallied outside buildings owned by The Irvine Company in Century City and in Orange County's Fashion Island while playing drums, waving brooms and chanting. 

 

Janitors are preparing to take a strike authorization vote this Sat., May 3.

 

"We're ready to do whatever it takes to give our children a chance to achieve the American Dream,"said Otoniel Montoya, a janitor working in a building owned by The Irvine Company. "I work hard so my children can live in a safe place, get a good education, and do better."

Wednesday's demonstrations were part of Dia de los Ninos celebrations with several janitors leading the marches pushing their babies along in strollers, carrying their children on their shoulders, or holding hands and marching together. 

Janitors are mostly Latino and often work in the obscurity of night servicing California's most prestigious corporations, but they earn wages so low that they struggle to provide adequate housing for their families.

Janitors would need to work 112 hours a week on the current wages just to make ends meet for a family of four, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Some area janitors earn as little as $8.65 an hour, less than $17,00 a year which is well under half of what it takes for a family of four to survive, according to the EPI.

New Website Launches: TheIrvineCompanyWatch.org Justice for Janitors launched a new website today as part of the demonstrations, aimed to highlight the corporate responsibility of The Irvine Company to ensure good jobs. The Irvine Company has agreed that the janitors that clean their Orange County properties receive access to family healthcare, but not for San Diego janitors, according to the website.

"The Irvine Company is practicing a policy of double standards that is hurting not only janitors and their families, but the entire community,"said California State Senator Gil Cedillo. "They're selling $4 million dollar, 2,000 square foot homes while at the same time, the janitors that clean their

properties are unable to afford decent housing themselves with several families cramming into 600 square foot apartments and that's not right. I urge The Irvine Company to live up to its corporate responsibility and ensure good jobs with decent wages and family healthcare for the sake of our communities, now."

 

California's corporate real estate giants such as The Irvine Company and others, as well as bio-tech and high-tech corporations who benefit from the janitor's work, have an historic opportunity now during contract negotiations for 20,000 of the state's janitors, to agree to decent wages and family healthcare. Janitors have been negotiating a new contract with cleaning contractors for months.