Companies provide medical insurance, sick leave, vacations and other benefits.
The decline in living standards has made the service and sweatshop economy in Silicon Valley the new focus for workers' organizing activity. In effect, workers in the service and sweatshop sector have been fighting to win wages and benefits close to the level of those won by semiconductor workers at the time of the previous peak in organizing activity ten years earlier. Over that period of time, the workforce of Silicon Valley has been forced to take a giant step backward. The spark which set off this new wave was the campaign to organize the jani-tors at Shine Maintenance Co., a contractor hired by Apple Computer Corp. to clean its huge Silicon Valley headquarters. Over 130 janitors joined Service Employees International Union Local 1877 during an organizing drive at Shine in the fall of 1990.