Laid-Off Janitors Protest Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers in San Jose, End Their 7-Day Fas

Religious leaders from the San Jose Interfaith Council on Race, Religion, Economic and Social Justice including Reverend Deborah T. Simon, Rabbi Melanie Aaron of Congregation Shir Hadash, and Father Eddie Samaniego of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church led a “End of the Fast” worship service at St. Joseph’s Cathedral, blessing the participants completing their week-long fasts and distributing ritual challah bread.

Following the service, the janitors and supporters marched two blocks down South Market Street to the Fairmount Hotel, where Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers was being honored with the “Pioneer Business Leader Award” at a dinner hosted by the Silicon Valley Education Foundation. The janitors marched and chanted loudly outside the Fairmont for nearly an hour, vocalizing their disappointment with the Foundation honoring Chambers as a “corporate leader and philanthropist,” when the layoffs of more than 75 of his company’s low-income janitors have destabilized the community and interfered with the education of the janitors’ children.

“We believe that ultimately, John Chambers is responsible for the layoffs, and it’s up to us to shine light on the fact that he’s not acting as a leader in our community,” said laid-off janitor Aura Martin in an interview with KTVU Channel 2 News.

“I want to tell John Chambers that we have needs, we have families, and they should bring us back to work,” said Juanita Gameros, a laid-off janitor and mother of three young sons. “Since I lost my job in February, it’s been extremely difficult. We don’t have enough money to pay all of our bills, we depend now on one income, which is my husband’s, and we don’t have enough money to buy food, shoes for our children. It is very, very difficult.“

Andrea Dehlendorf, Executive Vice President of SEIU United Service Workers West, the janitors’ union, also appealed to Chambers to help the janitors. “We are calling on CEO Chambers, as a highly regarded philanthropist, to ensure secure, quality jobs for all the workers providing services to his company,” she said. “Our community needs corporate leadership that avoids layoffs at all costs and directs their service contractors to do the same.

The janitors largely dismissed the statement issued by Cisco Public Relations department dodging responsibility for the layoffs and blaming the economic recession. In response to the statement, which said, “we sympathize with financial hardship impacting the former janitorial service employees and the millions of other Americans who have lost jobs… during this downturn in the economy,” Gameros pointed out that “Cisco is a healthy company,” with current cash assets of $34 billion.

Other janitors at the demonstration held signs illustrating the disparity between Chambers’ $11 million CEO pay package and 13,400 square-foot Palo Alto mansion, and the $11/hour average pay and living conditions of the janitors.

The fast and protest of Chambers came as part of a series of mobilizations the janitors have held over the last several months calling on Cisco to direct ABM to reinstate the laid-off janitors and commit to providing decent pay, affordable health care, and family-supporting jobs to all its contracted service workers. The janitors have also launched an online action alert for supporters to email Chambers directly, at http://seiuaction.org/campaign/justiceatcisco.

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Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1877 is part of SEIU United Service Workers West, representing more than 40,000 janitors, security officers, airport service workers, and other property service workers across California. SEIU is the largest and fastest growing union in North America.