Outsourced

1. Outsourced Dan Zuberi Assistant Professor Department of Sociology University of British Columbia, Vancouver Hospital Cleaners and Support Workers in Vancouver Invited Lecture, West Coast Poverty Center University of Washington November 2008 I would like to thank Research Assistants Melita Ptashnick, UBC and Ariel Taylor, UBC for their help with the fieldwork and this paper. I also thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada for a Standard Research Grant to support this project.

2. Three Studies • Global Hotel Study • 77 interviews with hotel workers in Seattle and Vancouver (2001-2002) • Hospital Workers Study • 42 interviews with hospital workers in Vancouver (2007-Present) • Urban Poverty in the Pacific Northwest: A Four City Comparative Study

3. Global Hotel Study Methodology

4. Global Hotel Study Policy Differences That Matter: • Union Organizing Rules and Labour Policy • Health Care Policies • Social Welfare Policy • Urban Public Investments

5. Differences That Matter

6. Health Care DifferencesLack of Health Insurance “Yea, I am worried. Because I am thinking, I haven't got any insurance and maybe someday I'm gonna [be] sick. And if I go to the doctor, I am going to have pay a lot without the insurance.” - Sujita Hassam, Room Attendant, Globe Hotel Seattle

7. Health Care DifferencesImpact on Health-Seeking Behaviour “Yea, I burn it with hot water and I was a mess. I didn't have money to go to the doctor… It's about a second degree burn. It was like all blistered and it was really bad. It was about that big… I didn't have the money. I owed Uptown Hospital still, [and so I felt] I couldn't go there.” - Samantha Beck, Barista (Coffee Server) Hotel Deluxe Seattle

8. Health Care DifferencesInadequate Coverage from Private Insurance “But then also sometimes when you do have insurance, you feel at ease because you think they'll take care of you and then something happens, and it turns out, they're like, oh, we don't cover that.” - Carrie Fitzpatrick, on-call Banquet Server Globe Hotel Seattle

9. Health Care DifferencesFinancial Stress of Health Expenses “Yea, I had to look at ways we could save money. Should we cancel our AOL, our cable, our cell phones, our storage, you know, should we use less heat? How are we going to save money here and there?… Yeah, taking a credit card that's got really high interest rate, 25% some of them… Your minimum payments are $2,500 per month and you make, without food and utilities or anything like that, and you make $2,600 per month.” - Joey Harrison, Maintenance Engineer, Hotel Deluxe Seattle

10. Setting the Stage: Hospital Support Workers Study What happened? Collective Agreements for these workers torn up in fall 2003 Jobs Outsourced to 3 multinational corporations 8000 employees laid off or fired, with some rehired but at substantially lower hourly wages and weaker benefits

11. Hospital Support Workers Study Methodology Phase 1: Interviews with 42 hospital cleaners and support workers employed at Vancouver area hospitals. Participant Observation research at hospitals Supplemental Open-Ended Interviews

12. Hospital Workers Sample Characteristics • 91% were born and raised outside of Canada (50% from the Philippines) • 71% arrived after 1981 • 86% are over the age of 40. • 74% earn less than $30,000 per year • 17% make under $20,000. • Nearly one-third report working a second or even a third job just to make ends meet.

13. Preliminary Findings • Challenges Making Ends Meet • Poor Quality of Work • Lack of Proper Training • Understaffing • Stress on the Job • Injuries and Illness

14. Challenges Making Ends Meet “It’s just like the money that I’m getting right now is just ... it doesn’t meet... Very very difficult... Every… on the first of the month I’ve got headache and all my accounts all negative. I think most... every month; my account is negative Because I stopped my one job so it doesn’t meet anymore… I really need three jobs but my body doesn’t- it cannot function anymore. Otherwise, I do not want to, to really get sick.” - Carmela Hilota, Filipina Hospital Cleaner and Dietary Aide

15. Challenges Making Ends Meet

16. The Costs of “Low-Road” Employment • Understaffing • Rushed at Work • High Turnover • Lack of Training and Experience • Worker Injuries • Poor Quality Work • Consequences for Patients

17. The Costs of “Low-Road” Employment: Understaffing and Quality • 67% reported that they are often or always working short staffed; 24% reported they are sometimes working short staffed. • 81% report that there are not enough staff to provide a good quality service • 51% report that they are often or always too rushed to work safely; 25% report that they are sometimes too rushed to work safely. • 66% report getting sick or injured in their current job.

18. Understaffing “They don’t hire enough people… Because I think they are trying to save money… Because we’re a contract… and they can’t keep people on either because they find better paying jobs.” • Melissa Mittal, a 29-year-old Indian immigrant hospital housekeeper

19. Understaffing “It’s the workload, and no cooperation from co-workers, and what else, (pause) not enough staff. When people call in sick, instead of calling someone to come and do that work, they won’t. They distribute the work and tell you, ‘You do this you do this.’” - Sofie Cuaro, Dietary Aide

20. Rushed at Work “Because sometimes, what happens, like… I have to get everything all ready at 2:30 but sometimes the patient, both upstairs, discharging. I have to rush, rush… [In] 15 minutes, I can't do it. There's no way you can do all the room, all the bed…there's no time at all!” - Peter Wu, Hospital Cleaner

21. Inadequate Training “You know when they send me to have an orientation? After two months I’d been working. To show me the chemicals, and how to work with the chemicals. I said, ‘Well I’d be dead by now if I didn’t know some of this stuff.’ Because I was working full time and they send me to the orientation and I say, ‘Why? I helped with everything already.” But that’s the way it is… it’s all backwards.’” - Paola Rozero, a 51-year-old hospital cleaner

22. Illness and Injury “Like MRSA [a super bug], we have to clean the room properly, everything need to be clean. If we didn’t clean properly, maybe other patient comes and he will get the germs and he will get sick.” - Angie Kristham, hospital cleaner

23. Poor Quality of Work “They don’t hire enough people. We don’t have the tools to work with either because they’re forever short of supplies and stuff like that... I work in there before [the contracting out] and I know that didn’t happen, and now it happen[s]. Sometimes I have one mop to work with. How do you do isolations with one mop? They say, ‘wash it and use it’... Why do you think we have so many break outs right now?” - Paola Rozero, Hospital Cleaner

24. Illness and Injury “A lady who burned here chest right here, over here, one of the supervisor told her, ‘Ok, just put some ice on it, don’t mention it to anybody.’ And the next day when I went, she cried to me, and I basically shout on the manager, the production manager, I said, ‘That’s totally unacceptable.’ I said, ‘Are you trying to save a couple bucks for the company not to pay for the workers compensation?’” - Khaled Imani, 43-year-old Hospital Cook

25. Not Enough Sick Days “When we’re sick, they’re just thinking that we're making it up. I hate that. I hate that. Yeah, and they even ask [‘Are you really sick?’], like sometimes. When you get up in the morning, and your body is so tired, and you feel pain, and there are times when you don’t want to go to work because you really feel sick. For one day, they’ll ask you a doctor’s certificate, and the doctor asks $10 dollars. They won’t even repay you!” - Colleen Lanta, Dietary Aide

26. Other Findings • Job Insecurity • Social Isolation • Neighborhood Issues

27. Policy Recommendations: Goals • Improve the quality of life and reduce experiences of hardship for those working in these kinds of jobs in the service sector 2) To create the conditions to foster the growth of secure “living wage” jobs in these expanding sectors

28. Policy Recommendations • Raise and Index the Minimum Wage • Increase refundable tax credits for the working poor • Reform unemployment insuranceprograms to insure that more workers receive decent benefits when laid-off. • Encourage employers to provide extensive job-based benefits and pay a living wage. • Require that bids for contracts pay prevailing in-house wages and benefits (as is now policy in the UK) • Improve labor standards, including mandatory benefits for all workers. • Increasing equality through progressive taxation and transfer programs to improve the lives of the working poor. • Perhaps go as far as Scotland?

29. Urban Poverty in the Pacific Northwest Comparative Study of Four Cities: • Vancouver (611,869 city, 2,249,725 metro) • Victoria (78,659 city, 330,088 metro) • Seattle (592,800 city, 3,203,314 metro) • Portland (568,380 city, 2,009,350 metro)

30. Urban Poverty in the Pacific Northwest

31. Conclusion – Hospital Support Workers Study • Sociological Debates • The Larger Context • Organizing to Change • Final Thoughts