Non-Cintas Pledge

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Author: Margaret Breslau

Started: February 6, 2006, 3:57:50 pm

Target: Student Government Association, Virginia Tech University

Category: Civil & Human Rights

Supporters:

115

Goal:

2,000

Goal Progress:

Status

Active

We, the undersigned, would like to express our disappointment that the Student Government Association has selected Cintas Corporation as the sponsor of the Big Event.
Cintas is the fast-growing, highly profitable, and historically anti-union company that dominates the industrial laundry and uniform business. It operates 351 facilities in the U.S. and Canada, including 15 manufacturing plants and seven distribution centers that employ more than 28,000 people. As the industry leader, Cintas sets the standard for employment conditions in the industry.
Unfortunately, the standard set by Cintas is inadequate for the corporation’s many workers, and worsens conditions for all uniform and laundry workers.
• Cintas has a virulently anti-union policy, and has repeatedly engaged in illegal practices to discourage and punish organizers. The General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board NLRB) charged Cintas with illegally firing and disciplining union supporters,threatening workers with plant closures and unlawful interrogations, among dozens of other charges.
• Cintas has engaged in systemic discrimination against women and minorities. The EOC has joined a lawsuit on behalf of women denied drivers positions at Cintas and is investigating Cintas for failure to hire and assign women to certain production positions and failure to hire and assign women, African Americans and Latinos into the company’s management training program.
• Cintas is the most profitable corporation in its industry, yet refuses to share its success with its workers, many of whom support families at a salary below the federal poverty line. In September, 2005, a California Superior Court Judge ordered Cintas to pay 219 current and former workers from their San Leandro and Union City laundries $805,243, plus an estimated $300,000 in interest for failing to pay workers a living wage.
Cintas’s interest in associating its brand name with the Big Event is clearly a cheap public relations exercise for a company whose behavior is contrary to the values that the event is supposed to promote. We hope the Student Government Association will reconsider allowing their event to be used in this manner.