Eye on Alpine
The VDLC supports the Alpine Business Maintenance workers organizing with the Justice for Janitors campaign and Service Employees’ International Union Local 2 for respect and fair treatment.
According to their website, Alpine Building Maintenance Inc. “has a workforce of more than 1,500 employees across Canada, from Victoria to Toronto, and is poised to reach 100 million square feet of commercial floor space by 2020.”
In the province of British Columbia, Alpine cleans approximately 12 million square feet of commercial and retail space, representing about 20% of their business in Canada. They have two office addresses registered in Delta and Richmond, BC.
Alpine has been the subject of numerous legal complaints filed at the Labour Relations Board in British Columbia as well as the BC Ministry of Labour Employment Standards Branch.
VDLC President Stephen von Sychowski provided the following statement to Justice for Janitors:
The janitorial industry is one of the most exploitative sectors of our economy. The use of short-term contracts and competitive bidding leads to a constant race to the bottom, intensifying precarity and driving down compensation.
Many workers have brought forward cases of abuse of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, and wide-spread Employment Standards violations including wage theft. The existence of these kinds of conditions in any sector of our economy harms the interests of all workers. That’s why we are proud to support the Justice for Janitors campaign. We thank SEIU Local 2, and all the brave workers who are standing together for justice.
Please CLICK HERE and add your voice in support of these workers.
