NYT: Among Janitors,Labor Violations Go w/ Job(illegal working conditions)

[DeepModem Mom]

Among Janitors, Labor Violations Go With the Job
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: July 13, 2005


....(Isaias) Garcia is part of a large and largely unnoticed group of workers - the nation's 2.3 million janitors - employed in an industry in which violations of wage laws and other laws are all too common, say workers, immigrants' advocates and even cleaning company executives.

Janitors are denied overtime pay, classified improperly as independent contractors, locked in the stores overnight and forced to work their first two weeks unpaid, based on dozens of interviews and numerous lawsuits and government enforcement actions. In some cities, immigrant workers are induced to buy franchises for $10,000 with promises of striking it rich, though earnings often fall short of the promises and franchises are sometimes simply stripped away.

"Illegal working conditions are pervasive in the nonunion part of the janitorial industry," said Gary Blasi, director of the Industrial, Labor and Employment Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The industry has undergone a metamorphosis in the past two decades, creating a marriage of convenience in which building owners have increasingly hired outside contractors to cut their labor costs. The cleaning contractors frequently hire immigrants, often without proper papers and at low wages, trying to squeeze out profits as they submit rock-bottom bids to win business. The immigrant workers dare not complain about safety or minimum-wage violations for fear of being fired - and possibly deported.

In this netherworld, cleaning contractors sometimes hire illegal immigrants for $3.50 an hour, considerably less than the $5.15-an-hour federal minimum wage; janitors frequently work off the books, not paying taxes, and building owners do not look too closely at how the work gets done....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/national/13janitor.html?pagewanted=all