Cleaners protest job cuts at Cisco headquarters, San Jose USA
Cleaners who work at the corporate headquarters of global technology giant Cisco Systems in the United States are struggling for justice following 75 job cuts, nearly half of the total cleaning workforce.
This week hundreds of members of San Jose religious groups, community organizations and social service agencies joined the 75 laid-off cleaners to hold a “laid-off workers emergency relief fair” to provide aid to these workers who were laid off. These workers are members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and to make their voices heard, the cleaners have set up a permanent camp outside of Cisco’s corporate headquarters in San Jose.
SEIU member Anjelica Aquino, a young mother of two was informed of her job cut upon arriving at work one day in February. “My family has to choose between buying food and paying rent” said Anjelica.
Since April 30, cleaners who were laid-off by Cisco’s contractor, American Building Management (ABM) have been camping around the clock in front of the company’s main headquarters to expose the injustice of their job lay-offs.
Despite the economic crisis and in shocking contrast to the layoffs of the service workers, Cisco has managed to protect the multimillion dollar compensation package of its CEO, John Chambers, avoid major job cuts of its own employees, and amass a stunning $34 billion dollar cash surplus. Last month Cisco was named the fourth most profitable technology company by Fortune Magazine.
Faced with the prospect of being unable to pay their rent or feed their families, these cleaners, many of whom are immigrants and single mothers, have vowed to continue their camp until Cisco and ABM bring the laid-off cleaners back to work.
The cleaners are determined to convince the company to reinstate the laid off cleaners and adopt a policy of fair treatment of all its contracted service workers. Contracted security officers at Cisco are paid poverty wages and do not have health care benefits.
On June 15th, International Justice Day, UNI Property Services will be promoting a Responsible Contractor Policy with multinational companies, to ensure these companies only contract to security or cleaning firms that treat their workers with respect, provide fair wages and obey national laws.
For more information go to www.justiceatcisco.org or contact Nadine Rae on nadine.rae@uniglobalunion.org