When Ramon Segoviano came into work last Friday, he thought it’d be like any other day. Instead, the NBCUniversal janitor was informed via text message that it would be his last day with the company.
Segoviano was just one of 100 unionized janitors who received layoff notices last week. The union, Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West (SEIU-USWW), began bargaining with the company Monday and staged a protest outside at South Weddington Park in Studio City Thursday afternoon alleging that the company had violated the contract.
“We just want to get the attention,” Segoviano said. “We were trying to talk to the executives to come to an agreement, but they wouldn’t even show their faces.”.
After days of negotiations, and just over an hour before the protest was set to begin, the company notified the union that it would be re-hiring the laid off janitors, according to David Huerta, SEIU-USWW president. Despite the reversal, more than one hundred janitors and union members came out to voice their support for the workers.
Huerta said that while he was glad that NBCUniversal reinstated the janitors, he believed the company had a bigger “responsibility” to ensure workers wouldn’t face uncertainty over their job security.
“The most responsible thing [an] employer can do, especially corporations and big companies like NBCUniversal, is treat the workers with dignity and respect,” Huerta said. “NBCUniversal cannot be successful without the grip workers, food workers, the janitors — all those workers all contribute to the health of this company.”
He emphasized the unexpected nature of the layoffs, which he said caught the union and the workers off guard because they had been in the midst of resolving workplace disputes with the company.
“There was no justification given to us,” Huerta said. “We had some issues with the employer. We were resolving those issues. But [this] was a very knee jerk reaction from NBCUniversal.”
Huerta described the issues as “contractual and seniority” related, but did not elaborate further.
The union was joined by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), which represents a number of film technicians at NBCUniversal. Tom Davis, an IATSE representative, said supporting the protest was key to ensuring the rights of workers across the company.
“We’re all dealing with the same employer,” Davis said. “When these companies become accustomed to treating one group of workers a certain way, it doesn’t affect just one group. It affects everybody.”
Mark Ramos, chair of the L.A. County Democratic Party and president of the Local 1428 chapter of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), also expressed his support for the protest, and told the union that the L.A. Democratic Party stood in solidarity with them.
Segoviano said that he, along with the other janitors, were there to fight for “justice,” and to show NBCUniversal that they deserved more respect.
“The corporate executives don’t know how to keep this place running, but we do,” Segoviano said. “People have worked here for decades. We deserve to be treated with respect. Without us, these corporations like NBC Universal wouldn’t make a profit.”
NBCUniversal did not respond to a request for comment from Annenberg Media by the time of publication.