During public comments at the Stafford School Board’s meeting on March 22, members of a group not often heard from addressed the board.
One after another, 13 of the contracted workers who clean the school division’s properties by day and night stood at the podium and asked for help—usually with their words being translated from Spanish—in standing up to their employer, ABM Industries.
“In seven years working for the company, this is the first time I have come looking for help,” said Antonia Ortez. “We work with love and we want the kids and teachers to be safe. But I am not even making minimum wage. The company has very few workers. I have kids in the school and I don’t think the cleaning we do is enough because we don’t have enough staff.”
Edwin Turcios, a 16-year employee of ABM, said he is “exhausted” by overwork and “disillusioned with the low salary and treatment we are given.”
The workers shared stories of earning less than minimum wage, not receiving pay for working overtime during the pandemic, not being given the personal protective gear necessary to carry out their work safely during the pandemic, having to buy their own cleaning supplies and feeling overworked due to a lack of staff.
People are also reading…
“I do not have time to do anything because I work alone,” said Carmen Canales, who works during the day at a county elementary school. “Everything is an emergency, all of it. I can’t go to any of it.”
Many of the cleaners said they love working in the schools because of the students, staff and families.
“I do not have children in the school, but I love the kids [like they are mine],” Canales said. “I work in the morning and they hug me. In December and for Valentines Day, they gave me gifts from the parents. So we do the job as well as we can.”
But the workers have decided that it’s time to advocate for themselves.
“The way the manager treats us is as machines only to work and work and work,” one of the workers, Mirna Benitez, said. “So we want to demand to ABM that they treat us as humans.”
Benitez and the workers who addressed the School Board in March are part of a group of about 20 ABM employees who have initiated a coordinated effort to improve their compensation and working conditions.
“From ABM, we want a clear policy on working conditions and salary. We want a base salary of $15 per hour, but to take into account seniority. And we want better working conditions for our health and that of the students. If I’m sick, I have to work, because I need my check. But if we are healthy, our children are healthy,” Benitez said.
Benitez and her coworkers are asking the School Board to “hold ABM accountable” or to hire them on as employees of the school division.
“The School Board has to pay attention to where they are investing the money of the taxpayers,” Benitez said. “All of it goes to ABM, not to Stafford County.”
“We are asking to be hired directly,” said Berta Rios, another ABM employee and the grandmother of students who attend Stafford schools.
According to Stafford schools spokeswoman Sandra Osborn, the division began converting in-house school custodians to contracted positions in 2014. There are still about 19 full-time custodial positions that are employees of the school division.
“As our in-house custodians retire or resign, we convert their positions to contracted service custodians,” Osborn said.
The school division signed a one-year renewal of its contract with ABM—which first began June 1, 2020—on April 4, accepting a proposed 7.5 percent price increase. The total annual price of the contract is about $5.2 million, or $430,496.90 per month.
According to its website, ABM provides cleaning services to facilities across more than 15 industries, from aviation to government to health care to education. It has more than 140,000 employees, according to its website, and brings in $6.4 billion in annual revenue.
Stafford’s contract with ABM states that there should be a minimum of one day custodian and three night custodians per each of the 17 elementary schools; two day custodians and three night custodians per each of the six middle schools; and three day custodians and eight night custodians per each of the five high schools.
According to the request for proposals issued by Stafford County Public Schools in February 2020, the contractor has responsibility for the “employment, supervision, compensation, insurance, promotion, and discharge of [its] employees” and that compensation should be in compliance with “wage and hour, fair labor standards, and any other requirements germane to prudent personnel management.”
Virginia’s minimum wage, according to state code, is $11 per hour through Jan. 1, 2023, when it will increase to $12 per hour.
In January 2026, it will increase to $15 per hour or the federal minimum wage, whichever is greater.
Federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since 2009, but there has been a $15 minimum wage for federal civilian employees since January.
Several of the ABM employees who addressed the school board in March said they make less than minimum wage, and all of the ABM employees who spoke to The Free Lance–Star reported making less than $15 per hour.
Rios, who cleans at a county elementary school, said she has worked for ABM for five years and makes $11.75 per hour.
Geomari Sabalza, who has worked for five years as a lead cleaner at one the school division sites, said her wages were raised to $14 per hour in November.
Benitez, who has worked for the company for almost six years, said she made $12.75 per hour for many years and now makes $14 per hour, while Fabiola Sosa, who was hired six months ago, makes $13 per hour.
Meanwhile, the workers said, ABM is hiring new employees with no experience at $15 per hour and not rewarding those with longer tenures and more responsibilities.
“Those with less time earn more than I do, and I have more work to do,” said Sabalza. “I have to attend the radio, take emergency calls, clean up lunch and the areas designated to me by myself.”
Rios said there is no clear or consistent policy in place regarding when or to whom ABM does give raises.
“It doesn’t matter how many years you are employed or the quality of your work,” she said. “Some people can get a raise and some cannot.”
The workers said the same inconsistency applies to overtime work and whether workers are paid for sick leave and school holidays.
“One day, they pay for holiday, another day they don’t,” Rios said. “When the kids are on vacation, we could work that week or we could not. Everything depends on the relationship with the manager.”
Sosa said she worked 24 hours overtime one week and that her paycheck reflected pay for only one hour of overtime. She said the amount paid for overtime is also inconsistent.
According to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek must be “not less than time and one-half the regular rates of pay.”
Sosa also said she came down with COVID-19 and did not receive pay while she was home on quarantine, but others coworkers did get paid while on sick leave with the virus.
Benitez said she feels that ABM does not prioritize the safety of its workers.
“At any time, they ask us to move heavy equipment around,” she said. “I have had to train my managers on [Occupational Safety and Health Administration requirements]. And from the beginning of the pandemic until today, nobody from ABM has come to tell me the protocol to protect myself from the virus.”
Benitez said the company provides its cleaners with the cheapest supplies and that they do not have the supplies they need to do the job well.
She said she uses a single mop to clean all the classrooms at Dixon-Smith Middle School.
Earlier this month, the workers submitted a list of their demands—which include a base salary of $15 per hour that progresses according to seniority and workload; payment for sick days, vacation, school holidays and inclement weather; payment for overtime according to federal standards; health insurance; the adequate and timely delivery of supplies; an established number of custodians per work area; and compensation for everyone who came down with COVID-19—to ABM’s general manager for Stafford County, Reginald Adams.
Adams did not respond to questions from The Free Lance–Star about the worker’s complaints, but ABM issued a statement Wednesday in which the company said, “Our priority is always the safety and wellbeing of our team members, and we are committed to working with them on those fronts.”
“We appreciate the hard work our team members put in every day to support our schools and help keep students, faculty, and staff healthy and safe,” the statement reads. “As one of the nation’s leading providers of facility services, our ABM team members receive competitive pay rates and access to benefits. Additionally, ABM provides all team members with gloves, masks, goggles, hand sanitizer, disinfectants, protective gear, as well as expert-backed trainings in the proper use of personal protective equipment and virus protection.”
The Stafford workers met with the school division’s then-interim superintendent, Stanley Jones, in September. Following their appearance at the School Board meeting in March, Osborn said the school division “has discussed and will continue to discuss concerns directly with ABM management over the treatment of their employees as outlined in the contract.”
At the School Board’s April 26 meeting, Griffis-Widewater District representative Elizabeth Warner reported that the board’s finance and budget committee has discussed the worker’s complaints.
“We are working with [ABM] to make sure they are in compliance and addressing the issues that were raised,” Warner said.
The Stafford workers also plan to submit official complaints to the National Labor Relations Board and OSHA this month.
The workers said in a statement that they appreciate the “solidarity support of the schools, of the principals, teachers and school staff, and that they have no complaint against them or against the work.”
Instead, the workers said, their complaints are focused on the “unfair working conditions and mistreatment to which they are subjected by ABM, managers and some supervisors” and they claim that the company “has been irresponsible with the health of workers, students, teachers and staff, parents, and in general with the population of Stafford.”
Benitez said she is “glad to be the voice of the suffering we have been through.”
“We are frustrated,” she said. “Our voices need to be heard and nobody heard us before.”
