Who is hit hardest by Big Tech job cuts? Cooks and janitors

Behind Silicon Valley prosperity is a workforce divided into haves and have-nots, says Naomi Nix, where contractors receive few to none of the benefits of full-time employment

Doug Lawson was a lead line cook employed by a contractor for Meta (Sarah Hoffman/Washington Post)

Doug Lawson, 34, was promoted two years ago to lead line cook by a contracting company that staffs many of the cafeterias at Facebook-parent Meta.

He was excited to take the new job, helping other cooks prepare food for the company’s tech workers – whipping up dishes such as pork buns and steamed vegetables at the company’s Seattle offices.

But in March, contracting company Flagship gave Lawson and his fellow line cooks a stark choice: they could either accept a lower-level position with similar responsibilities and lower compensation or be laid off. Lawson stayed, but the reduction in his monthly take-home pay has stung.

“Rent is not getting $160 (£120) cheaper. Food is not getting cheaper,” says Lawson, who now makes about $26 an hour, $1 an hour less than before. “A lot of people couldn’t take that,” so they took a severance package and left, he says.

For years, tech giants like Facebook and Google have been known for generous perks like free food and massages, outfitting their sprawling campuses in Silicon Valley and beyond to attract the best engineering talent and keep them in the office as long as possible. Many of those services – plus others, from janitorial tasks to content moderation and engineering – are provided by an army of largely invisible contractors like Lawson, who are employed by outside firms and don’t receive the same benefits or compensation as direct employees.

Now, amid steep tech layoffs and cutbacks, due in large part to weaker spending on digital ads, those workers are some of the most vulnerable.

I’m working under the same ceiling, doing a job for them. How come I deserve less? How come they don’t treat us the same as the full-time workers?

Marisol Mora

Google, in an email to staff earlier this year, said it would cut down on the number of “microkitchens” that dot its offices and are stocked by contract workers. Others who provide support for the company’s army of engineers are being hit, too, as the firm cuts down on the free perks that defined its work culture for years. When Google laid off 12,000 employees in January, among them were two dozen massage therapists.

Tech companies often tout the generous benefits they offer the full-time workers they lay off, including several months of severance pay, post-employment healthcare, immigration assistance and job search resources. But many temporary workers and subcontractors don’t get the same lifeline when tech companies cut or modify their jobs.

“All of the bad practices predate the layoffs, but the layoffs sort of compound” the issues facing subcontractors and contingent workers, says Catherine Bracy, chief executive of TechEquity Collaborative, which advocates for tech workers. “That’s because these workers are in extremely precarious positions.”

The Google campus in Mountain View, California (Melina Mara/Washington Post)

Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton says that for almost two years, the company paid its vendors to ensure that workers assigned to a Meta building, such as janitors, security guards, shuttle drivers and culinary staffers, were paid even if they couldn’t do their jobs from home.

“We are managing our spend more effectively as part of our companywide goal to create durable savings where possible, including with some of our vendor suppliers,” says Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini.

Google cafeteria workers have unionised en masse over the past several years as part of their efforts to secure better health benefits and lower the wage chasm between them and full-time Google workers. Now, around 90 per cent of those who cook food at Google offices belong to unions, according to Unite Here, a 300,000-member union representing hotel and food service workers. Last month, six Google contractors said they had been fired from Appen, the firm that employs them, for speaking out about their work conditions. They were reinstated by the company after The Washington Post reported on their firings.

Meta has laid off more than 21,000 full-time workers in multiple rounds of cuts as part of a larger push to become more efficient. The social media company offered those workers 16 weeks of severance pay and two additional weeks of pay for every year of service. Meta also agreed to maintain their health-care coverage for six months and connect the departing workers with job counseling and immigration specialists.

Lawson cooks at a Meta office cafeteria in Seattle (Doug Lawson)

At Flagship, the contractor for food services, workers had a different experience. Roughly 223 Flagship food workers posted in Meta offices located in the Bay Area, Seattle and New York were laid off or demoted this spring after the social media giant decided to close some of its buildings, according to Unite Here. The workers were given two months of pay and healthcare coverage, according to interviews and documents.

Last month, Meta announced to culinary staffers that it was closing another commissary in September, according to Unite Here and documents. The closure could result in laying off anywhere between 160 and 200 staffers, according to Unite Here.

In April, Flagship gave Bryan Kinney, 28, the choice of giving up his job as a prep cook in Seattle and becoming a dishwasher with a $2-an-hour pay cut or changing his prep cook hours from mornings to evenings. Kinney, who was making around $21.75 an hour, took the third option: walking away with two months’ severance.

It would be “undoable, because it would just change my life completely – turn it upside down,” he says about the shift change. “The best option was to take the severance.”

Silicon Valley giants like Facebook and Google have enjoyed years of seemingly unstoppable revenue growth, creating tens of thousands of jobs in the California area. But behind their prosperity is a workforce divided into haves and have-nots, based on their employment status. Workers employed directly by the companies earn the highest salaries and obtain the best job perks. But the companies also employ an army of shadow workers, through subcontractors and outside vendors, who don’t receive the same kind of compensation as their full-time counterparts.

It’s just another way to eke out a few more dollars out of your paycheck so they can make a few more dollars, and it just seems completely unfair and unnecessary

Doug Lawson

Companies often tap vendors to bring them workers to perform specific job functions such as food services, janitorial services or even software development. The companies also turn to staffing or temp agencies to bring on workers through short-term temporary contracts that are extended at the discretion of a company manager – often for only a few months at a time. Contingent workers often toil alongside full-time employees, and their work is often overseen by a tech company manager. But their pay and benefits are managed by the staffing agencies, according to a recent report from the worker advocacy group TechEquity.

“I’m working under the same ceiling, doing a job for them. How come I deserve less?” says Marisol Mora, a California-based line cook assigned to Meta who was laid off in January but was later asked to return as a temporary worker. “How come they don’t treat us [the same] as the [full-time] workers?”

Lawson wears a hat made by a colleague (Sarah Hoffman/Washington Post)

Contract workers, who are more likely to have gender and racial backgrounds that are underrepresented in the technology industry, are often paid less than full-time staffers at those same companies. That’s in part because contracting agencies can take a 30 per cent commission on the fees they collect from the tech companies to pay for the workers, according to the TechEquity report. And while many of these workers would like full-time jobs, offers are scarce.

Some regulators are taking notice. In California, a proposed bill would require employers to give workers at least 90 days’ notice if they are laying off more than 50 workers at a time. The bill would require tech companies to offer the same benefits in the event that they are laying off contractors who have worked for them for at least half of the preceding year.

In May, a group of former janitors sued Twitter for ending their contract and then hiring a new contractor without retaining the original staffers – a practice they say runs afoul of a New York labour law.

Lawson says he would also like to see change at Meta. He and his girlfriend, who is a local artist, are mostly reliant on his income to pay the bills. And he could use the money he lost to help pay down his credit card or student loans.

“It’s just like another, like, slap in the face,” he says. It’s “just another way to eke out a few more dollars out of your paycheck so they can make a few more dollars, and it just seems completely unfair and unnecessary.”

The Washington Post’s Gerrit De Vynck in San Francisco contributed to this report.

© The Washington Post