Meet the Workers: Sandra Jones

Like millions of immigrants before her, Sandra Jones came to the United States in search of better opportunities for herself and her children. A native of Barbados, Sandra works for Executive Management Services (EMS) cleaning offices at Sky Bank in downtown Indianapolis.

As an employee of EMS, Sandra has encountered low wages, limited part-time hours, and no access to affordable health care.

As a woman, Sandra says she has encountered something even worse—sexual harrassment.

“When I first started working at EMS my supervisor would try to flirt with me,” she says. “But after he realized I wasn’t interested in going out with him he started treating me very rudely.”

Sandra says she was not alone. “My coworker left EMS because she couldn’t stand it anymore but I couldn’t leave because I depend on this job to take care of my family,” she says.

Normally, Sandra works from 5:15pm until 9:30pm. When she has to work more hours, however, she has to sometimes fight for her just pay. “The extra hours often do not show up on my pay check,” she says. “When I tell the manager about it sometimes he fixes it and sometimes he doesn’t. I get tired of arguing but I need the money and every bit counts.”

Sandra’s job at Skybank is part time. She, like others, has also witnessed that when EMS says they pay $7.50 or $7.75 an hour, it doesn’t account for the hours that they work off the clock.

Sandra is often frustrated by the harassment and low wages. But Sandra is a hard worker who would like to take pride in a job well done. Sometimes the worst part of the day is when tenants of her building—who she believes deserve the best services possible—express disappointment.

“There is a woman on one of my floors who often passes me and says ‘pew, these bathrooms stink,” she says. “She’s right. We don’t have the supplies to clean them properly. We are sometimes left with nothing but water in our spray bottles and when I ask my supervisor for more he tells me we can’t waste the chemicals because we have to squeeze the dollar.”

Dollars, tenants, Sandra. It seems like everybody’s getting squeezed.