Janitors strike at Silicon Valley tech companies

Hundreds of janitors walked off the job Tuesday in the Silicon Valley, leaving the local offices of technology giants like Cisco Systems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Oracle Corp. and Yahoo Inc. without their usual cleanup crews.

The union representing some 6,000 janitors in the Silicon Valley and the East Bay began striking over what it claims are too-low wages and unnecessarily long waits for workers' families to become eligible for health care.

Gina Bowers, spokeswoman for the Service Employees International Union Local 1877, said the strikes will start with Cisco, HP, Oracle and Yahoo but will grow each day to include more janitors and more companies if the contract dispute isn't resolved.

There is no timetable for the strike.

The janitors work at the technology companies but aren't employed by them. Instead, they work for third-party cleaning companies.

The union claims that companies like Able Services, ABM Industries Inc., DMS Facility Services, OneSource Management Inc., and Service by Medallion have tried to intimidate and threaten workers during the contract negotiations.

The union has called on the high-profile technology companies that benefit from the janitors' work to push for higher wages and better health care benefits for the workers.