Upskilling Property Service Workers in California

Sieberg: Property service workers, like janitors, airport, and stadium workers, play a pivotal role in California and all across America in upholding the functionality and aesthetics of residential and commercial spaces. But these jobs very often fall short of providing family-sustaining wages. Hello, I'm Daniel Sieberg, and this is "Getting Connected," powered by Comcast Newsmakers. We're on location at the 2024 Skills Summit in Washington, D.C. Joining me is Luis Sandoval. He's the Executive Director of the Building Skills Partnership, which works to improve the lives of property service workers in low-wage industries and their families. Luis, thank you so much for being here.

Sandoval: Thank you for having me.

Sieberg: Now, I understand that you have a personal story that relates to the nature of Building Skills Partnership. I would love to hear more about it.

Sandoval: Thank you so much. So, in 1996, my parents came to this country in search of a better life. They came here striving to reach the American dream. Unfortunately, you know, my dad, due to skills, due to language, had to enter a profession as a farmworker. You know, that's what he knew. That's what he did for many, many years. You know, his next step up was to become a janitor. I myself became a janitor. I worked as a janitor for four years and I'm proud of the work and the lessons learned. You know, my parents instilled the values with me to say that all jobs have dignity. And today, I take those lessons and those values at heart. And those are the lessons and values that I lead Building Skills Partnership with, right, in terms of making sure that we bring respect, bringing dignity to the jobs that janitors and farmworkers do across the state of California. You know, for me, it's something that I'm very proud of and it's something that I think I will continue to do in partnership with, you know, these responsible businesses who are willing to figure out a way how can we do business in a better way.

Sieberg: You mentioned your own story. Tell us about the workers and what you see as challenges that they face to provide for themselves and for their families.

Sandoval: Yeah. So there's a variety of different challenges I think that janitors and also airport workers face. I think some of them include, and I think you mentioned low wages, right? This, you know, industry tends to be an industry where janitors and airport workers get paid low. That's not, you know, the case in this particular relationship that I have with SEIU and responsible businesses. Here we have janitors and airport workers who are being paid livable wages. They also receive training through Building Skills Partnership. However, that's not the custom, right, across the industry. I would say that a lot of janitors and airport workers also face other, you know, challenges such as the digital disconnect, right? They have lack of access, lack of hardware, lack of skills training around digital. So that prevents them to fully integrate in their communities and be able to access resources. They also lack other challenges and they have lack of resources, such as housing, food insecurity, as well as just the strenuous work schedules that they have. You know, most janitors come in to work at 6 PM and end their shift at 3 in the morning.

Sieberg: Sounds like a combination of personal and professional challenges. What is Building Skills Partnership doing to address these?

Sandoval: Yeah. So we try to circumvent all those challenges and we take training to them. So our training motto is that we take training to the worksites. Our training often takes place at 10 PM, during janitors' lunch, and we take our instruction to them. We really pride ourselves in making sure that we're worker-centered, making sure that we meet workers where they're at. That's part of our core value. We provide different types of trainings, mostly it's around vocational ESL, but a good portion of that is around Green Janitor Education Program, as well as other programs that we have.

Sieberg: And tell me about a success story, perhaps, and how you plan to build on these successes going forward.

Sandoval: Yeah, we have a recent graduate here, Juan Rivas, who is now a project supervisor at Google. He worked for C&W Services and he started with the program as a janitor, took our digital training classes, was able to be part of the Digital Navigator Program that we have, and now is a supervisor there at C&W Services. And, you know, he's just an amazing role model in terms of, you know, what the programs can do but also, you know, the opportunities that are opening up because of training.

Sieberg: Fantastic. Luis Sandoval, Executive Director of Building Skills Partnership. Thank you so much for joining us.

Sandoval: Thank you so much for having me.

Sieberg: And thanks to you as well for watching. For more conversations about digital equity and broadband expansion, visit gettingconnected.com. I'm Daniel Sieberg.