Female janitors exposing sexual assaults and harassment in the workplace march in Santa Ana at high noon today.
The rally by about 300 janitors, students, security officers, women activists and union allies comes three days after International Women’s Day and the release of a UC Berkeley study on the race to the bottom in the janitorial contracting industry.
“Brave immigrant women” are “coming forward to end the silence around rape in the workplace,” according to a SEIU United Service Workers West statement on the new campaign.
The union paints the attacks as a symptom of a much larger problem.
“Large California companies are driving California’s income inequality problem by increasingly contracting out janitorial and security services to fly-by-night firms, exposing workers to low wages, unsafe workplaces and substandard working conditions.”
The half-hour march begins at noon at 1 Macarthur Place and continues on to 4 Hutton Center, where speakers will address participants.
Safety risks faced by women who often work alone at night in empty buildings were previously highlighted in the June 2015 PBS Frontline report “Rape on the Night Shift,” produced by former Weekly reporter extraordinaire Daffodil Altan!
