Silver Taube: San Jose janitor sues Molecular Devices and subcontractors

On Aug. 8, I wrote a Spotlight column entitled “Project 2025 will gut worker protections.” In the coming months, I will discuss the roll out of the labor and employment provisions of Project 2025, the impact of immigration enforcement on the workplace and important developments at the local government level to protect worker rights.

Today, I want to bring attention to the multi-level contracting relationships that are rampant in the janitorial industry, even in profitable companies, where a web of subcontractors is used to avoid culpability and deprive janitorial workers of their rights.

On Oct. 16, Legal Aid at Work filed a federal lawsuit against Molecular Devices, LLC, Crystal Janitorial Service, Inc. and the owners of Stefanoni’s Janitorial on behalf of a janitor, Mr. Ceja Flores. Flores performed janitorial work at Molecular Devices headquarters in San Jose for the past 13 years, but he was not hired directly by Molecular.  Molecular Devices hired Crystal Janitorial. Crystal hired Enrique Sanchez and Leticia Stefanoni who operated Stefanoni’s Janitorial, which hired Flores.

Molecular Devices makes biotech research devices. It is owned by the conglomerate Danaher, a company with 63,000 employees and a valuation of $177.24 billion. According to the lawsuit, Flores worked 44 hours a week at Molecular and was paid $1,930 a month or about $10 an hour, less than the San Jose minimum wage which was between $15.25 to $17.55 an hour between 2020 and 2024. Two days a week he worked at an apartment building in Mountain View that had a contract with Crystal Janitorial and was paid a flat rate of $520 a month. In total, he was paid about $2,400 a month for his work with no overtime pay.

When Flores required eye surgery in March, he was terminated despite his eligibility for job protection under the Family and Medical Leave Act. He had informed his boss two months prior to the surgery that he needed to take a month off for the surgery and sent a photo of the doctor’s note stating he could return to work on April 18. When he tried to return to work on April 18, he was told there was no longer work for him.

The lawsuit alleges failure to pay minimum wage and overtime under state and local minimum wage laws, failure to provide mileage reimbursement when Flores traveled between Molecular and the apartment building in Mountain View, failure to provide lawful rest breaks and lunch periods, failure to pay a split shift premium when Flores was required to clock out and return to work later in the day, waiting time penalties for failure to pay Flores all his pay on his last day of work and violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act and the unfair competition law.

Both Molecular and Crystal disclaim liability. However, beginning in 2015, the California Legislature and the Labor Commission enacted new laws and procedures focused on “up-the-chain” liability. A 2015 law strengthens employer liability between contractors and subcontractors, and a 2016 law holds contractors and end-users of property services including the janitorial and long-term care industry jointly liable for wage theft. The goal of these “up-the-chain” rules is to incentivize customers to hire honest janitorial companies and encourage a fairer marketplace so bad actors do not price out honest companies.

Despite strong California laws, wage theft and violations of the law still occur in the janitorial industry where multi-level contracting relationships are often created to evade liability. We must step up enforcement of the laws and provide oversight to eradicate the abuses.

San José Spotlight columnist Ruth Silver Taube is supervising attorney of the Workers’ Rights Clinic at the Katharine & George Alexander Community Law Center, supervising attorney of the Santa Clara County’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement Legal Advice Line and a member of Santa Clara County’s Fair Workplace Collaborative. Her columns appear every second Thursday of the month. Contact her at [email protected].