Time to CLEAN Up the Car Wash Industry

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/27/time-to-clean-up-the-car-wash-industry/

by James Parks, Mar 27, 2008

No city loves its cars like Los Angeles, and keeping those cars looking good is big business. The city of Los Angeles has more car washes—430—than any other metropolitan area in the country.

According to the Western Carwash Association, an industry trade group, car washes in Southern California average about $1 million gross annual income and can have a profit margin of up to a whopping 29 percent. But if you are one of the thousands of workers who shampoo, wax, dry and detail cars, you don’t see any of that profit—in fact, you may not get paid at all. You also may have to work long hours in 100-degree heat, with no lunch break, no fresh water to drink and risk getting sick by being exposed constantly to harsh and dangerous chemicals.



Today, the newly formed Community-Labor-Environmental-Action Network (CLEAN) Carwash Campaign, a coalition of community, religious, environmental and immigrant rights organizations, announced plans to support Los Angeles car wash workers’ efforts to form a union with the United Steelworkers (USW). The mostly immigrant car wash workers throughout Los Angeles have formed the Car Wash Workers Organizing Committee of the United Steelworkers (CWWOC) to raise their standard of living, secure basic workplace protections and address the serious environmental and safety hazards in their industry.

Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, told a press conference today:

For too long, carwash owners have operated in the shadows, violating labor and health and safety laws with impunity. This coalition is going to do some spring cleaning of a dirty industry, and bring these injustices out into the open.

The CWWOC released a report, Cleaning Up the Car Wash Industry: Empowering Workers and Protecting Communities, which confirms that Los Angeles car wash owners often ignore labor laws, health and safety regulations and environmental protections in their pursuit of the bottom line. Car wash workers are often illegally paid less than the minimum wage, sometimes working for tips alone.

Says Saturnino Hernandez, a car wash worker:

On a sunny day, hundreds of cars might come through the car wash where I work. The boss yells at us to work faster as the cars line up down the street. We are not allowed to stop for a break or for lunch. They don’t give us any fresh water to drink. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe because of the chemicals; my eyes sting and my skin sometimes breaks out in a painful rash. For all this, I’m paid about $35 for a 10-hour day and when I get sick, I have no insurance to pay the bill.

FULL story at link.