Time to CLEAN Up the Car Wash Industry

by James Parks, Mar 27, 2008

No city loves its cars like Los Angeles, and keeping those cars looking good is big business. The city of Los Angeles has more car washes—430—than any other metropolitan area in the country.

According to the Western Carwash Association, an industry trade group, car washes in Southern California average about $1 million gross annual income and can have a profit margin of up to a whopping 29 percent. But if you are one of the thousands of workers who shampoo, wax, dry and detail cars, you don’t see any of that profit—in fact, you may not get paid at all. You also may have to work long hours in 100-degree heat, with no lunch break, no fresh water to drink and risk getting sick by being exposed constantly to harsh and dangerous chemicals.  

Today, the newly formed Community-Labor-Environmental-Action Network (CLEAN) Carwash Campaign, a coalition of community, religious, environmental and immigrant rights organizations, announced plans to support Los Angeles car wash workers’ efforts to form a union with the United Steelworkers (USW). The mostly immigrant car wash workers throughout Los Angeles have formed the Car Wash Workers Organizing Committee of the United Steelworkers (CWWOC) to raise their standard of living, secure basic workplace protections and address the serious environmental and safety hazards in their industry. 

Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, told a press conference today: 

For too long, carwash owners have operated in the shadows, violating labor and health and safety laws with impunity. This coalition is going to do some spring cleaning of a dirty industry, and bring these injustices out into the open. 

The CWWOC released a report, Cleaning Up the Car Wash Industry: Empowering Workers and Protecting Communities, which confirms that Los Angeles car wash owners often ignore labor laws, health and safety regulations and environmental protections in their pursuit of the bottom line. Car wash workers are often illegally paid less than the minimum wage, sometimes working for tips alone.  

Says Saturnino Hernandez, a car wash worker: 

On a sunny day, hundreds of cars might come through the car wash where I work. The boss yells at us to work faster as the cars line up down the street. We are not allowed to stop for a break or for lunch. They don’t give us any fresh water to drink. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe because of the chemicals; my eyes sting and my skin sometimes breaks out in a painful rash. For all this, I’m paid about $35 for a 10-hour day and when I get sick, I have no insurance to pay the bill.

A Los Angeles Times investigation found that hand car washes “often brazenly violate basic labor and immigration laws, with little risk of penalty.”

Half or more of carwash owners flout the minimum-wage law, estimated David Dorame, the longtime lead investigator for low-wage industries at California’s Division of Labor Standards Enforcement…employees at a fifth of Southern California’s carwashes in the last five years have formally accused owners of illegally underpaying them, The Times found.

Feliciano Hernandez, who has worked in car washes for more than 40 years, says the workers will gain respect with a union: 

I am 63 years old now. I can tell you, it’s gotten much worse for the workers over the years. The boss used to pay us for all the hours we worked and for the overtime too. I could support my family working in a car wash back then. Now I have to work odd jobs in order to pay my rent and for gas and other bills. We used to get breaks for lunch and to take a rest. No more. Now it seems we just work for hours with no breaks and no water, even on the hottest days. And, in the end, the boss shorts our paychecks. I’m organizing with the union because I see how they treat these younger folks. The boss has no respect for us. We work hard and we don’t deserve to be treated like animals.  

Many car washes use dangerous chemicals in the cleaning process. Workers are regularly subjected to health and safety hazards, such as exposure to hazardous substances without protective gear. According to the CWWOC report, car washes use highly toxic chemicals throughout the cleaning process, including benzene, zinc, hydrogen fluoride and other metals and acids. Workers regularly are exposed to these chemicals, either through direct contact or in wash wastewater, which is used to pre-soak and shampoo the cars. 

Many workers do not have access to protective equipment such as gloves, boots, goggles or face masks. And many have not had any training in the use of hazardous materials as is required by law. Between October 2006 and September 2007, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health issued 99 citations for deficient hazard communications programs and 92 citations for ineffective injury and illness prevention programs for car washes state­wide. 

But in a statement, Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti says things are about to change: 

Working men and women in Los Angeles should be paid decent wages that allow them to support their families. We want to make sure that car wash employees are paid fairly and car wash owners abide by requirements to protect the health and safety of their workers.

Members of the CLEAN Carwash Campaign include the AFL-CIO, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, California Labor Federation, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Los Angeles-Orange County Organizing Committee, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Pride At Work and the USW, along with other unions and numerous immigrant rights, human rights and community groups.

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