Janitors who clean Orange County’s high-rise offices, retail shopping centers including Fashion Island, Irvine Spectrum Center and other facilities voted on whether or not to walk off the job. Today’s overwhelming vote authorizing the janitors’ bargaining committee to call a strike if necessary means that janitors representing more than 2,000 Orange County janitors could call for a county-wide strike at any time.

“I want to be able to imagine a better life for my daughters, but right now it’s hard to think about the future when I’m struggling to pay rent and put food on the table,” said Ramona Padilla, a janitor who cleans the Irvine Towers. Ramona has worked as a janitor for 17 years and still earns less than $350 a week.

The Orange County Central Labor Council will announce their decision to extend a strike sanction at a press conference scheduled for 11:00 AM on Monday, May 5. With a strike sanction, the county’s 80 local unions and 140,000 union members are pledging to honor janitor picket lines during the upcoming strike.

Irresponsible Cleaning Contractors
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 Able, ABM, One Source DMS and others for intimidating, interrogating, harassing, threatening and retaliating against workers.

“We’re standing up for good jobs so our children will have a better future,” said Ramona Padilla. “We’re willing to do whatever it takes so these companies stop breaking the law.”

Low Wages, High Cost of Housing
Orange County 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.

Janitors currently earn $8.65 or $18,000 a year, and must pay up to 89% of their wages on rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Orange County, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (fair market rates 2008).

Community Support
The strike authorization vote came as Orange County elected leaders held an emergency meeting to resolve the crisis of poverty conditions among the area’s janitors.

"Janitors make an important and significant contribution to the success of the commercial real estate industry," stated State Assemblyman Jose Solorio. "I hope the involved real estate companies in Orange County do the right thing and help resolve this situation as soon as possible."

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.”

Historic Opportunity To Raise Standards, Improve Entire Communities
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.