About 20 Stanford workers gathered Wednesday near Building 10 in protest of UGL Services, the staffing agency that recently won a contract for janitorial services at the University. The workers claim that, under the new contract, as many as 29 janitors are at risk of being unjustly fired and replaced by lower-paid hires. The group was joined by student supporters from the Stanford Labor Action Coalition (SLAC), who distributed leaflets to passersby. Last year, SLAC created an online petition demanding that current workers' jobs be retained under the new contractor. As of Wednesday, the petition had garnered just over 2,000 signatures. In January, the custodians' union and UGL were reportedly entering an arbitration process expected to come to a resolution this spring. It is not uncommon for Stanford to re-bid a janitorial contract every few years, Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. '82 told students in January. (Courtesy of Devin Banerjee)
