| Time | Wednesday, October 13 · 2:00pm - 3:30pm |
|---|---|
| Location | Marching from Lot 16 (Nat Sci) to Aldrich Hall |
END SUBCONTRACTING AT UCI! INSOURCE ABLE WORKERS NOW!
Although the University of California, Irvine only began subcontracting custodial services through ABLE Services on July 01, 2010, the University has a history of relying on outsourced labor for over three decades. UCI administration is the last within the University of California system to continue this exploitative hiring practice to manage campus service workers.
According to ABLE’s website “ABLE Services solid reputation within the facility service industry has been built on providing ‘best in class’ services at a reasonable cost.”1 In order to provide customers a “reasonable cost”, the company pays its workers poverty wages, does not allow custodial workers access to adequate cleaning supplies, thereby lowering sanitation standards and increasing the UCI community’s risk of exposure to infectious disease. Despite these risks, University administration consciously relies upon outsourced labor with companies like ABLE as a way to “cut costs” regardless of budget deficits. UCI’s administration has long been complicit in keeping our service workers and their families living in poverty as a “cost effective” measure. Another cost effective measure currently threatens both students and workers:
UCI Violates Federal Safety Regulations Putting Student and Worker Health at Risk
The effect of exposure to cleaning agents used by ABLE custodial workers ranges from moderate irritation to severe burns and central nervous system damage. ABLE workers are not provided any Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) or training on the use of PPE and disposing hazardous chemicals (carcinogens, toxins, irritants, corrosives, sensitizers, hepatotoxins, nephrotoxins, neurotoxins) and biological wastes (infectious agents, blood borne pathogens, other biohazardous materials). ABLE’s practices are in direct violation of the Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, which requires that workers are provided PPE if exposed to chemicals causing “injury or impairment in the function of any part of the body through absorption, inhalation or physical contact” (Standard - 29 CFR: 1910.132a).2 The contract between the University of California, Irvine and ABLE agrees to provide workers with such training, yet workers have yet to receive it.
More recently it was discovered that ABLE workers are currently not provided with proper cleaning supplies posing a serious health risk to the entire UCI community. As part of the “reasonable cost” measures dictated by ABLE, the company has continued to lower sanitation standards by limiting the use of detergents and protective materials from workers forcing them to dilute scarce detergents at hand and in many instances cleaning surfaces and public areas solely with water. Such extremes by ABLE and UCI administration to “balance the budget” on the backs of workers places the entire UCI community at serious health risks in an era of H1N1 viruses and other dangerous flu epidemics.
Stop UCI administrators from exploiting our service workers and help hire them directly by insourcing them.
Stop UCI administrators from creating serious health risks by shifting its responsibility to subcontracting companies like ABLE who seek to reduce their own costs at the expense of our health.
Stop UCI administrators from keeping our service workers and their families from living in poverty.
