Silicon Valley Tech Firms Keeping Custodians on Payroll

Tech companies with Silicon Valley, California, campuses are among the businesses riding out the pandemic by sending their employees home to work. While many tech companies let employees go, especially contract workers no longer needed to service empty buildings, others, such as Nvidia, Apple, Facebook, and Google are still paying foodservice workers and custodians even though they stay home, The Mercury News reports.

For example, Nvidia—a graphics chip manufacturer, which is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and has another office in San Mateo, California—is paying more than 14,000 contracted service workers to stay home.

“What they’re doing is quite unique,” said Enrico Moretti, University of California, Berkley economics professor. “These decisions are likely to be based not purely on financial considerations, but considerations of fairness or image.”

Enrique Fernandez, business manager for the labor union United Here Local 19, which represents workers subcontracted by Silicon Valley tech firms, agreed that the companies are placing equity concerns over economic concerns. “There is a certain responsibility on the part of these companies not to be a driver of inequality,” he said.

“We have to look out for one another during this difficult time, so we’re paying drivers, janitors, food service employees, and other contract workers who are unable to do their jobs from home,” said Chloe Meyere, Facebook spokesperson.

The contract workers’ employers, although grateful their staff is being taken care of, look forward to the day when everyone can return to the Silicon Valley campus facilities. Billy Hatler, a senior vice president at ABM Industries, which provides thousands of custodial and cleaning staff to the region’s tech giants, told Mercury News, “They’re going to want their workers to come back in because we’re losing a lot in terms of culture, of collaboration, and in terms of being together to solve big problems.”