California property owners abuse the bodies of janitorial workers. We must act | Opinion
Nothing exemplifies California’s extremes of wealth and poverty like the gap between billionaire property owners and the janitors who mop their floors.
When night falls in Silicon Valley, Hilda Cristina Mosquera cleans the offices of one of the largest and most powerful technology companies in the world. Years of heaving heavy materials into recycling bins — often hundreds of bags a night — left Hilda’s fingers painfully jammed together. She tried every imaginable treatment to keep working through the painful, debilitating injury until surgery was the only option. Without disability insurance, Hilda couldn’t even stay home to heal during a year of painful recovery.
Opinion
Commercial janitorial work has always been hard on workers’ bodies, and the historic 1990s Justice for Janitors campaign made the industry’s financial and physical exploitation of immigrant workers notorious. But in the wake of the COVID pandemic, landlords and their subcontractors have put janitors’ bodies and mental health under more strain than ever.
Asm. Luz Rivas, D-San Fernando, authored Assembly Bill 2364, legislation championed by Service Employees International Union janitors, to study fair janitorial workload standards. The bill is a starting point to end janitor exploitation by establishing a committee made up of both workers and the commercial property industry to define safe and healthy workloads. It’s a simple, step-wise measure that deserves the support of California’s legislators and the governor.
Working with the bill author, janitors modified our initial proposal for a legally mandated square-footage-per-hour workload limit. Instead, we are offering to sit down with the industry to find a mutually agreeable standard. But commercial landlords are pushing back on the idea of even sitting down with workers for a conversation to explore reasonable health and safety standards.
While they say the aftermath of the pandemic is forcing them to increase work loads, we know saving a buck is not a justification for multi-billion dollar property owners inflicting life-long, torturous pain onto workers’ bodies.
Juan Way, an immigrant from Guatemala, cleans an office building in Century City in Los Angeles. At one time, 20 janitors would fan out to clean the towering 27 floors. Now, the same amount of work is shared by just four janitors; every 8-hour shift, Juan must clean hundreds of offices, conference rooms and kitchens across six floors — a relentless pace that has left him suffering with constant pain in his arms and legs and stress that gave him panic attacks that require medication.
In this dangerous, dehumanizing industry, Hilda and Juan’s stories are the rule, not the exception. A report by the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation found that 56% of janitors surveyed are working with severe pain, 58% of them regularly use pain medication and 33% suffered one or more work injuries in the last year.
Janitors are strong and proud. Coming to Sacramento to tell legislators how their bodies are breaking down from years of abuse doesn’t come easily for immigrants who are well acquainted with sacrifice. They do it because they want better than a lifetime of debilitating pain for their siblings, spouses and children who might follow them into the business.
Still, the property owners hope legislators will overlook the facts and scuttle the bill, folding under the headwinds of a nationwide, coordinated, MAGA-led attack on the humanity and dignity of immigrants.
We believe that after hearing the stories of janitors who have endured the relentless pressure, pain and emotional toll of this exploitative industry, California’s leaders will see AB 2364 as a reasonable, necessary step toward better health and safety in the workplace.
David Huerta is president of SEIU United Service Workers West and SEIU California.
