We the undersigned students of Stanford University have recently become aware of a threat to unjustly terminate the employment of as many as 70 janitors at Stanford. The staffing agency UNICCO recently won the contract to provide janitorial labor to Stanford, and will take over from ABM beginning December 1st of this year. During the process of rehiring, UNICCO has required all current janitors to pass a background check. On November 10th, about half of the 148 janitors received letters saying UNICCO could not verify their names, dates of birth, and social security numbers and will therefore not be offering them work. This is unacceptable. We love our current janitors, we appreciate all the hard work they do, and we consider them an integral part of the Stanford community. We stand in solidarity with them, especially during this transition, and we will act to support them if they are treated unjustly. We understand that social security background checks fail for a variety of reasons and therefore do not constitute grounds for termination of employment. We demand that UNICCO rehire all the janitors currently employed by ABM. We believe UNICCO and Stanford must do everything in their power to resolve this problem and, in so doing, must provide workers access to legal council and direct representation at all meetings between any of UNICCO, Stanford, or SEIU 1877.

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