SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)  -- After a one-week strike thousands of janitors who clean some of Silicon Valley’s largest corporations  headed back to work Wednesday night.

Union members voted by a five-to-one margin Wednesday afternoon to end the strike.

"We believe we won a settlement that was tremendously better than the offer that we recieved before we decided to go on strike," said Mike Garcia, the janitors' union president.  "We nearly doubled the wage increase offer.  We won another $31million in health care.  The total package of this deal is about $100 million."

The walk out that began on May 20 over wages and health care affected Oracle, Cisco, Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard and other large companies throughout Santa Clara County.

The SEIU was asking to increase the annual wage from $23,000 and to allow family members to enroll in health plans earlier than the 2½ year waiting period mandated under the previous contract.

The strike garnered national attention when Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama last week issued a statement in support of the union.

KCBS' Mike Colgan reports

Image courtesy of CBS 5.
(jro)