Silicon Valley Janitors Sign New Contract

Members of the janitors union that cleans 70% of Silicon Valley’s offices voted over the weekend to accept a new contract, averting a strike that would have spotlighted the wealth disparity in one of America’s richest and most expensive enclaves.

After a marathon negotiating session that lasted into Saturday morning, the S.F. Employers Council, representing a dozen major cleaning contractors, offered a raise of 70 cents an hour, or 9%, the first year and 65 cents an hour in each of the next two years.

The average current wage is $8.04, around poverty level for a family of four, for the 5,500 members of Service Employees International Union Local 1877. Many members work two jobs or live with their entire families in a single room.

The leadership of the local union, which had staged demonstrations at many of the valley’s largest high-technology employers, recommended approval. The rank and file backed the contract 643 to 116, averting a strike that had been set to begin Sunday.

The negotiations followed a three-week strike by Los Angeles-area janitors in the same union, and the Silicon Valley agreement may have been aided by public support for the union from some tech firms, including 3Com and Genentech.

Some firms have already been discomfited by elected officials decrying the “digital divide” on access to the fruits of the technology-led economic boom, by conspicuous consumption in the valley, and by last year’s temporary shortfall in the United Way campaign.

A strike would have been a major embarrassment to companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and others who use the major cleaning contractors, observers said.

“These people are under desperate circumstances in the midst of all this affluence,” said Stanford University law professor William Gould, a former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. “The big firms would have a difficult job explaining away their acquiescence.”