The Santa Clara City Council has unanimously passed the first worker retention ordinance in Silicon Valley! This new ordinance will provide much-needed job security to some of our most vulnerable workers.
This law will protect food and building service workers from mass layoffs when companies switch contractors. It requires that if a company with an office or venue in Santa Clara hires a new contractor or brings services in-house, the workers who currently work at that location must be kept on for a 90-day transition period.
At a packed council meeting that stretched from Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning, workers shared moving stories about why this worker retention policy is so important.
Maria Guerrero, a cafeteria worker at Intel, described how “Intel has changed food service contractors twice in the last three years, and the first time, workers lost their jobs on the day before Thanksgiving. I worry constantly about losing my job to a contractor change.”
This win would not have been possible without people like you raising your voice together with the workers who feed, protect and clean for some of our region’s most successful companies.
Thank you to everyone who emailed the council, made phone calls, and came out to the vote. Your support was critical to this unanimous victory.
