UC Berkeley Labor Center releases report on rise of contracted employees in state

By Anna Dell’Amico

The UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education released a report Tuesday highlighting the negative implications of a significant increase in contracted employees throughout California’s custodial and security workforces.

The report — titled “Race to the Bottom” and compiled by Sara Hinkley, Annette Bernhardt and Sarah Thomason — identifies an approximately 100 percent increase in the number of contracted janitors and a 50 percent increase for contracted security workers in the state from 1980 to 2014.

According to Hinkley, their research began in October, although her team had long been interested in the outsourcing of labor. The report showed that contracted janitors earned 20 percent less than noncontracted janitors and that security officers earned 18 percent less from 2012 to 2014. Additionally, 53 percent of contracted janitors and 36 percent of security officers live in families that fall below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, the report found.

“When workers are contracted out, they lose ground,” Hinkley said. “They lose out on wages, (and) they lose out on benefits.”

Helen Chen, a contributor to the report, noted that janitors and security workers are also at high risk of sexual assault, as they often work alone at night. She added that the convoluted structure of contracted labor, paired with a lack of human resources, reduces the likelihood that workers will report sexual violence.

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[Source]: The Daily Californian