Facebook has two types of workers: some who are very rich and others who are very poor

THEGUARDIAN

 Workers who are not on the direct payroll of the Zuckerberg company charge a lot less and can not enjoy some facilities

A couple who work in the social network cafeterias do not reach the end of the month or from a distance. They have three children, live in the garage of his parents and borrow to go to the dentist

Families that depend on the salaries of Facebook's cafes do not make ends meet

By Julia Carrie Wong27 Jul 2017 20:43

Thanks to the trips that Mark Zuckerberg is making throughout the United States to fulfill his "personal challenge" of 2017 to "impregnate himself with the challenges and hopes of the people" we have been able to see him driving a tractor, having a meeting with people who are Recover from their addiction to heroin, putting on a hard hat and speaking out against  immense economic inequality (something their $ 68.5 billion fortune clearly represents).

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But for Nicole, one of the Facebook cafeteria workers, all this has raised a very important question: "Is she going to come here?"

"Here" is only a few miles from the five-unit Zuckerberg complex in Palo Alto and a few blocks from the glitzy Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park. Here, on a quiet street of modest prefabricated homes, Nicole and her husband Víctor (who also works in the cafeteria) live in a garage with their children, who are nine, eight and four years old.

"You do not have to travel the world," says Nicole. "I should know what's going on in your own city."

This family of five has lived in this meager space next to the house of Victor's parents for three years. Three beds are grouped on the back wall, while an armchair and a coffee table in front of the space serve as living room. The clothes are perfectly hung on the tracks of the garage door. The family goes to the house next door to use the bathrooms and the kitchen. "It's not easy," Victor admits. "Especially when it rains."

"Our daughter constantly asks us when she's going to have a room of her own and we do not know what to say to her," adds Nicole.

On Friday, the couple were among about 500 Facebook workers who chose to join a union, Unite Here Local 19. They are the last group of workers in the technology sector who are  looking to join their unions in the hope of achieving a better quality of life.

Facebook and the food service contractor, Flagship Facility Sevices, opposed the union campaign.

Neither engineers nor waiters arrive at the end of the month

Working in the Facebook cafe is enviable for many reasons. Nicole wins $ 19.85 an hour as the leader of the turn, while Victor earns $ 17.85 (15.30 euros). Both well above the minimum of $ 15 per hour(almost 13 euros) established by Facebook in 2015. However, it is not surprising that the family has to be struggling to get ahead in a region where software engineers ( Who earn four times more ) complain about not arriving at the end of the month.

They earn too much to get state medical aid, but little to afford the health insurance offered by their company. It is usually a struggle to get enough money for basic things like food and clothing for your children. Recently, Victor has had to borrow his mother to be able to celebrate the birthday of one of his daughters and, to a friend, to pay an appointment with the dentist.

"Some time ago, the salary would not have been bad," says Víctor, "but because of the Facebook wave, now everything is much more expensive. Sometimes I have to ask for advances because what we win is not enough."

Sometimes, all these obstacles make the couple feel nostalgic for the days before the arrival of Facebook to Menlo Park. When Victor was a kid, his father was able to buy a small house in Menlo Park with a gardener's salary. At the beginning of their relationship, the couple earned about $ 12 an hour as managers at the Chipotle and could afford their own apartment.

"I felt safer in my other job. You did not have people looking over your shoulder," Nicole says. Now he works in a cafeteria that has names like "Epic" or "Live your dream". The gap between the two classes of workers that Facebook has could not be greater. "They look at us as if we were from a lower class, as if we did not matter," says Nicole about Facebook employees. "We are not making any of our dreams come true, it is those who work in technological companies who are living them, dreams are for them," he laments.

The small affronts are numerous. At the end of each shift, Nicole sees a pile of food in the recycle bin, but the workers are not allowed to take her home. Cafeteria workers can only enter Facebook's medical centers if they have been selected for a prior and mandatory toxicology examination. Facebook recently celebrated its "Bring Your Child to Work" day, but the children of cafeteria employees were not included.

A spokeswoman for Facebook says that none of the workers who are not directly hired by the company has access to facilities such as clinics, gyms or celebrations such as taking their children to work. It also says that these policies are a matter for the contractor and its workers.

"We want to provide a safe and fair working environment for all those people who help Facebook to make the world more united, including contracting companies," the social network spokeswoman said in a statement.

A Flagship spokesman said they "are confident they have a positive and productive relationship with the syndicate." The company has declined to comment on its policies for workers on the Facebook campus.

"People think, oh, you work for Facebook, you're doing great," says Victor. "I'm supposed to be the strong person in the family, that I have to do my best to keep the promises I make to my children, that I have to buy clothes and food ... we're both working and costing ourselves Provide them with this. "

"Our motivation is not to attack any of the companies," says Nicole. "Our motivation is our families, why do we have to live like this when our company has the resources to make things better?" "We're not asking for millions of dollars," says the father. "Just do not be afraid if I have to go to the doctor. That is the reason we are working together," he concludes.

Translated by Cristina Armunia Berges