This story updates our Rape on the Night Shift investigation.

Simon Brooks was broke and homeless after his idea for a Scrabble-like app failed. He kept sticking around the startup accelerator where he’d been working and eventually found his next idea.  

The accelerator wanted him to clean the bathroom. At first, he was offended. But then he looked into it, and, as Brooks recently told San Jose Inside, he found an industry built on low wages and workplace abuse.

Brooks’ company, Squiffy Clean, is paying higher wages and offering equity to his first 25 cleaners. It’s also sending workers out in teams to prevent sexual abuse.

“We go out in a group,” he told San Jose Inside. “Safety in numbers. We want to do better by our people.”

Brooks credits our investigation into the sexual abuse of night shift janitors, Rape on the Night Shift, for his decision. The investigation uncovered serious sexual abuse in the janitorial industry and the failure of companies large and small to prevent it. It was a collaboration between Reveal, the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley, KQED, FRONTLINE and Univision.

More at source: Reveal News

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