Day 1: Silicon Valley Janitors Walking Off the Job Today

"Enough is enough, we are standing up for good jobs for ourselves and our families,"said Adolfo Morales, a janitor at Cisco Systems. "We keep these corporations clean and open for business but we need decent wages to meet our basic needs and we have to be able to take our children to the doctor, we cannot wait anymore."

Contract talks for more than 6,000 janitors ended last Thursday with the Bay Area's largest cleaning companies refusing after months of negotiations to propose even modest pay and benefit improvements to janitors currently making only $23,000 a year.

It would take more than 77% of a Bay Area janitor's wages to pay rent on a one-bedroom apartment in San Jose, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development fair market rates FY2008.

Bay Area janitors currently earn wages so low that they do not even account for half of what the Economic Policy Institute says it takes to meet basic needs for a family of four, or $54,000 annually.  A janitor would need to work 112 hours a week to support their family on the current wages.

Silicon Valley now leads the nation in average median income, but the janitors' wages fall far below their counterparts in other U.S. cities (New York janitors earn $20.25; San Francisco janitors earn $17.05; Chicago janitors earn $14.20; Silicon Valley janitors earn $11.04).

The area's janitors service some of the most profitable industries and office properties in the country but earn poverty wages and have to choose between paying rent or taking a sick child to the doctor. Bay Area janitors must work more than two and a half years before they become eligible for family healthcare. Los Angeles and Orange County janitors, by comparison, must work only 6 months to become eligible.

Irresponsible cleaning contractors have illegally tried to silence janitors who are standing up for justice, according to charges that the janitors' union is preparing to file with the federal labor board against Acme/GCA ,  Able, ABM, Brilliant , Customized Performance , Diamond, DMS, ISS , Little Giant , One Source , Pacific ,  Service by Medallion , Service Performance, Somers,  UBS , and United Maintenance  for unfair labor practices including intimidating, interrogating, harassing, threatening and retaliating against workers.

In other cities across the country, including Houston and Miami in 2006, Boston in 2002, and Los Angeles and Chicago in 2000, janitors and their allies have led strike-related activities including massive public marches in public parks and down sidewalks and city streets, picket lines outside major office buildings, prayer vigils, hunger fasts, and other forms of non-violent protest.

In April, California state legislators called on the state's top corporations who benefit from the janitor's work to take responsibility for good jobs for the sake of entire communities as they released a report, "The High Cost of Low Wage Service Jobs: How Communities Pay the Price for Poverty Conditions Among Janitors."

For more information about SEIU Local 1877 Justice for Janitors visit: www.seiu-usww.org .