A Dog-Eat-Dog World

A journalist frets about job security, then realizes things could be worse -- he could be a janitor at Yahoo!

A A A Comments By Matt Smith Wednesday, Sep 4 2002

...continued from page 2

A couple of weeks ago, Olguin and a union representative went to the Yahoo! headquarters wishing to speak with the company's president, Jeffrey Mallett, about Olguin's firing by Team Services.

"I wanted to ask him if he thought it was fair that his janitorial firm had fired me for trying to organize into a union," Olguin says. "They sent six guards to throw us out."

Mark Poutenis

More About

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Weekly Newsletter: Our weekly feature stories, movie reviews, calendar picks and more - minus the newsprint and sent directly to your inbox.

Yahoo! for its part had a spokesman send me the following statement:

"This situation is about the Service Employees International Union's attempt to organize employees of our janitorial contractor, Team Services, Inc. We have been assured by Team Services that they will comply with the established legal procedures if their employees want to make the choice to have union representation."

Team Services counsel Ann L. Butler, in her company's defense, made the laughable suggestion that paying janitors $6.50 an hour is actually good for the economy.

"We're seeing the death throes of Silicon Valley. Twenty-four percent more people are leaving Silicon Valley. We're no longer able to support the working class. We've got to look at the economy. When you go to a company and say, 'Here's what we will do your services for,' do you think they're going to take the more expensive company because they're union?" she asked rhetorically.

Actually, companies such as Yahoo! will continue contracting out as many services as they can to union-busting contractors, unless their Web-surfing customers complain. If Yahoo! users are anything like me, and wish they weren't in the midst of an economic slump with no guaranteed end, they might just start using a different search engine, at least until the company hires union janitors.

If we don't do something, and our great nation, state, and region continue to backslide, and economic inequality worsens instead of getting better, impoverished local residents may be reduced to sleeping outside. Some may even drink water from plastic bowls. We'll be no better than dog people.

Check out this week's featured ad for News