San Jose Spotlight
By Silver Taube
Allegations of wage theft loom over Palo Alto as several janitors who clean the city’s facilities have filed at least $23,000 in wage claims, not including penalties.
The janitors filed claims with the Labor Commission against the city’s janitorial services vendor, SWA Services Group, a non-union company. These troubling allegations highlight the failure of one of the most expensive and affluent cities in California, full of wealthy venture capitalists and tech companies, to protect its essential, often forgotten janitorial workers in the midst of an ongoing global pandemic.
According to Maintenance Cooperation and Trust Fund (MCTF), a janitorial industry watchdog organization, seven of the city’s subcontracted janitors have filed claims alleging unpaid wages going as far back as 2018. The janitors allege SWA Services Group has failed to abide by wage requirements in its contract with Palo Alto—and that the janitors are getting paid below the wage standard Palo Alto requires in the contract...
On June 15, state Sen. Josh Becker wrote a letter urging Palo Alto to look into wage theft claims janitors recently filed against their employer, SWA, for contracted work performed for Palo Alto. Becker noted property service industries tend to have track records of high turnover, poor quality of service and wage theft—and that these issues are particularly prevalent in the janitorial industry where exploitation, sexual harassment and violations of wage and hour laws are commonplace. He concludes by encouraging the city to find solutions to prevent these abuses and states it is critical for local governments to adopt a higher level of standards for these subcontracted services.