SAN JOSE, Calif. (KCBS) -- Janitors who clean some of the area’s highest-profile corporations are trading their brooms for picket signs today.
Hundreds of workers walked off the job at Cisco Systems, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and other high-tech and bio-tech corporations throughout the Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. As the strike expands, it could spread to other parts of the Silicon Valley and Bay Area, according to SEIU, Local 1877, which represents the janitors.
“Enough is enough, we are standing up for good jobs for ourselves and our families,” said Adolfo Morales, a janitor at Cisco Systems. “We keep these corporations clean and open for business but we need decent wages to meet our basic needs and we have to be able to take our children to the doctor, we cannot wait anymore.”
Janitors make about $23,000 a year.
Contract talks for more than 6,000 janitors ended last Thursday with the Bay Area’s largest cleaning companies refusing comment.
(clo)
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KCBS' Matt Bigler reports
