Durham County has rescinded its contract with Angelica Corp., an industrial laundry service also under contract with Duke University Health System. The corporation pays its Durham employees $8.25 per hour, failing to comply with the county’s living wage policy, which requires employers to pay their employees at least $9.15 per hour. The University announced its eight-year, $4.5 million per year contract with Angelica in March, amid protests from students and union representatives.
Angelica was awarded a bid to clean uniforms for the county’s Emergency Medical Services earlier this year. The withdrawal from the EMS laundry service contract at a meeting of the Board of County Commissioners Monday night was greeted with loud applause by more than a dozen Angelica workers, union representatives and Duke students in attendance. Because Angelica did not alter its policies, the county decided to reopen bidding on the services. Angelica’s corporate representatives did not speak at the meeting.
Many at the forum felt that the commissioners did not go far enough in reprimanding Angelica for what union representatives consider unsafe working conditions.
“Angelica is a sweatshop by all the government’s definitions,” alleged Theresa El-Amin, director of Jobs With Justice. Speakers noted that although the city of Durham passed an anti-sweatshop ordinance in August 2000, the county has yet to make a similar move.
“I think what we did today was to establish that Angelica is indeed a sweatshop. This company should never have been awarded this contract due to the way they disregard the law and break it,” said Fernando Bribiezca, a representative of UNITE HERE, the labor union that represents 60 percent of Angelica employees nationwide.
Wearing matching red UNITE HERE T-shirts, the Angelica workers went up to the podium, their children in tow. Rolanda Gentry, a soft-spoken Spanish woman, presented their case as Bribiezca translated. “The reason we are here is because this company continues to ignore us and not listen to us.... When people get injured on the job, the managers don’t report it. We have to demand to see a doctor,” Gentry said. “The only time they pay any attention is when it actually affects production.”
Gentry also noted employee safety issues. “The company has cameras for their own parking lot, but the employee parking lots have no security. The parking lot for employees is located in the back, and there have been lots of thefts and slashing of tires. We are scared for our safety,” she said.
Angelica also recently came under the scrutiny of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational and Safety Health Administration, facing fines of more than $120,000 for violations at some of its plants, although the Durham facility has not been subject to any such charges. These recent developments have fueled the efforts of UNITE HERE and the Duke chapter of Students Against Sweatshops to impel the University to take action against Angelica.
“I thought that tonight was definitely a great show of both worker and student support. We definitely need to stop Angelica from having any more sway,” said senior Allison Brim, a member of Duke’s Student Employee Relations Committee. “I hope that the workers and the rest of the community will use this motion to put pressure on Duke. Durham County doesn’t condone treating workers badly, and neither should Duke.”
Paul Norman, a UNITE HERE representative, agreed. “We are waiting for Duke to answer the workers’ requests to hold Angelica accountable for their actions. Duke has a code of conduct that we want to make sure is followed,” he said.
Several SAS members were in attendance and were generally encouraged by the results of the forum. “I think that its an important step that Durham county has taken a stand in the local community. It shows that Duke can take a similar action and ask for proper safety and medical care in contracting their work,” said senior Adam Gorad, a member of SAS.
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