Tech Work Under the Pandemic: Cleaner and App Co-Owner

A collaborative interview series by Tech Workers Coalition and Data & Society

In this blog post, Tech Workers Coalition Ana Ulin interviews Marve Romero. Marve is a Latina that enjoys working in community. She is a member of the East Harlem Cleaning Cooperative, which belongs to the larger cooperative Up & Go. During the pandemic, Marve participates in workshops, meetings, and training online. She and fellow worker-owners also added new cleaning services, recruited more workers, and were featured in The New York Times. She always seeks to deepen her cooperativist spirit. Para leer en español, haga clic aquí.

In this interview series, Tech Workers Coalition and Data & Society speak to four tech workers about how their work has changed during the pandemic and draw out different models of solidarity.

Ana Ulin: Tell me about yourself. Where are you from? What was your background before Up & Go?

Marve Romero: My name is Maria Veronica Romero Hernandez, “Marve.” I’m 48, and I’ve lived in New York for 14 years. I’m from Mexico; I was born in Veracruz, but I grew up in Mexico City, and later in Mexico State. In Mexico, I was a catalog shoe salesperson.

I came to San Francisco in ’95, where my son was born. After two years, I brought my son back to Mexico to be near family. I didn’t think I would come back to the US, but the situation in Mexico was difficult. The US seemed like it would allow a more flexible work schedule and my ex-husband had family in New York. We needed money, so I worked in a laundromat despite my husband wanting me to focus on the child.

Ana Ulin: How did you start working with Up & Go?

Marve Romero: Seven months after arriving here, I was suffering psychological violence. In Mexico it would be nothing: they beat your grandmother, they aren’t beating you, just take it. My ex-husband was angry because I started working in the laundromat, part-time. He watched me. And one day he told me that I had to go, and I had to leave the house.

I have a brother here, and he supported me. I was living with my son for 8 years in a basement. In court, I went to ask for custody, but they told me that psychological violence was difficult to prove, so I stayed quiet.

I worked in a lawyer’s office. The lawyer asked me about my situation and I explained: I came from Mexico, my son was born here. He began to review my case, he told me that I had suffered domestic violence. We went to court, and he helped me with the paperwork.

Later, at a dance event, I met the promoters of VIP, an organization for the prevention of domestic violence. I called them and they helped me.

After I was done with my time at VIP, they told us that there was going to be an informational meeting to become part of a cooperative. They taught us to do the paperwork and to incorporate a cooperative, East Harlem Cleaning, with which we joined the Brightly cleaning cooperative franchise. As a Brightly cooperative, we had an approval period to join Up & Go. We came into Up & Go when there were three cooperatives.

Ana Ulin: Tell me about the structure of Up & Go.

Marve Romero: It is a cooperative of cleaning cooperatives. The base is the members. In our cooperative, there are 12 members. We make decisions and create policies.

Up & Go has everything technologically structured, it is an app. We work with other cooperatives, which is one of the seven principles of cooperativism.

Each cooperative sends two representatives and has its own policy for choosing representatives for Up & Go. Every three weeks we have Up & Go membership meetings. There is a board of directors, that consists of three representatives from three cooperatives, and two external people.

We have the support of CFL, the Center for Family Life. They support us with technology, marketing, funds, and also with a place to meet.

Ana Ulin: You mentioned that you are part of Brightly, which in turn belongs to Up & Go. How does Brightly work?

Marve Romero: Brightly is a franchise. It has its own brand and a standard of quality of services. And it is also a cooperative.

We have representatives who meet to develop changes. Sometimes a vote is needed for a decision. Each cooperative elects its representatives, often based on availability.

You are an employee, but you are also the owner and you have the power to decide.

Ana Ulin: You are not only worker-owners, but also businesswomen. You founded a company together. That requires good personal relationships and a lot of trust. How did you create those relationships?

Marve Romero: With the support of CFL, who are cooperative developers. We met at a weekend retreat.

You arrive at a place with new people, with some idea that it is a business where you are going to be an owner and a worker at the same time, but nothing more. We began to get to know each other, our colleagues, and ourselves.

There are also men in all this, but there are many women, which is something very positive for us, so we can say, Ok, we feel comfortable, we can do it.

We had moments where I said, I can’t take it anymore, it’s too long, when are we going to start working? Now I realize all that we have walked and all that we have learned.

It’s like going to school. It has opened us up to different things, to knowing ourselves, more about personal relationships, technology, marketing, accounting, many things that we did not know anything about as employees.

That has also been a challenge, to change that mindset. You are an employee, but you are also the owner and you have the power to decide.

And we continue to get to know ourselves. Although we love each other very much, those of us who currently remain have persisted, because it is also a matter of persistence.

I have learned from our guides, from the women who have been teaching us, and from my peers.

It isn’t about someone winning, it’s about us learning, being able to fit together. It takes us out of our comfort zone. It changes our mindset, shows us that you are in control of this, but you also have this responsibility.

It is something that I always wanted. Before I thought about starting a cleaning company. But now I know it’s not just let’s get together and let’s go. If we don’t have a structure, policies, a way of running things, it will easily dissolve, because we don’t have the tools.

The universe put me where I wanted to be.

It isn’t about someone winning, it’s about us learning, being able to fit together.

Ana Ulin: How is working for Up & Go, compared to the work you did before?

Marve Romero: It is a fairer salary. Before, sometimes customers wouldn’t want to pay me and would say, there is another person who charges me less. Then I would have to lower the price. There is a lot of abuse and a lot of wage theft. Working at Up & Go is an assurance that you are working for what’s fair.

On your own, you get a client and you go clean their house for a year and suddenly they tell you I’m moving next week and you are left with nothing. Sometimes I had a lot of work and sometimes I had nothing. The difference with working at Up & Go is that we are doing marketing, looking for promotion, advertising.

If a client, when I was working on my own, canceled overnight, I had nothing to support me. At Up & Go there are policies for them, and there are policies for us. If you cancel within so many hours you will have to pay a percentage. We find in Up & Go our rights as workers, when before we might have believed that as domestic workers we don’t have them.

Working at Up & Go gives me the advantage of being able to work when I can. I think that is why it has worked for my colleagues because most of them have children and they can adapt work to their availability.

The pandemic hit us all like a bucket of water.

Ana Ulin: How did the pandemic affect your work? Did you have to change any policies? Did it affect your sense of security?

Marve Romero: The pandemic hit us all like a bucket of water. Unfortunately, our residential cleaning service was non-essential. People stayed at their house and we couldn’t go clean. The application was closed for three or four months. Some people had to stay home.

We started to develop commercial cleaning, which was front-line and it was not closed. Also move-out cleaning. And we also started doing disinfection cleaning.

We had to develop a safety policy for the clients and for ourselves. You have to go to a place and you have to go in your mask, with goggles, with special clothes that you take off when you leave.

We took time to prepare, learn how to do it. Almost everything has been via Zoom because we can no longer meet in person. We had to adapt to the videoconference because before everything was face-to-face.

Even the technology in the Up & Go application had to change—to be able to send messages to customers telling them that because of Covid we cannot serve them, we hope they are well, and that kind of thing.

Ana Ulin: If you hadn’t had the cooperative during the pandemic, how would have things been for you?

Marve Romero: Since we are a cooperative organization, member of some other organizations, there were resources. I get emotional, because there are people who were totally stranded, and thanks to belonging to a cooperative, other organizations supported us. They were able to give us food, money, vouchers to buy food.

All of that has been a great help. If we hadn’t been in the cooperative, I don’t know how we would have fared.

We find financial support, and also moral support because we meet every 15 days via Zoom and we talk and find space to be. The workshops were key to keeping us busy.

For those with children, it has been doubly difficult. You attend the meeting and also homeschool. But I think that for most of us, we all agree that belonging to a cooperative has been a great help. In all aspects.

I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to see my colleagues, to do some paperwork, at a distance, but see each other. That makes our ties stronger, to have seen them, and to have been able to tell them don’t worry, we are here, we are going to get through this and there are people who are helping us.

Ana Ulin: Have you started doing residential cleaning again?

Marve Romero: Yes, in July.

In the pandemic, those values ​​were strengthened — trust, responsibility.

Ana Ulin: You mentioned before some values ​​of Up & Go: security, trust, responsibility. These values, have they helped you during the pandemic?

Marve Romero:: Sometimes when you are in a normal situation, you see your principles, but you don’t feel them so much. In the pandemic, those values ​​were strengthened — trust, responsibility. Because we begin to understand that we have a responsibility to take care of ourselves, to follow the rules, to grow and learn.

There are many things that we didn’t believe would ever happen, and now that all this has happened, there is more solidarity.

I had an experience on Thanksgiving when they were asking for volunteers to give food. I always had wanted to do it, but it is working as a cooperative member that strengthened me, pushed me to do it. I sent messages to my colleagues, come here today. Having this network has strengthened us, to say look, don’t worry, you can do this, you can do that, look for this resource, look for the other.

Sometimes, when suddenly we don’t hear from a colleague anyone can say I’m going to call so-and-so to find out how she is. We are all indirectly or directly learning from this organization. We did not come to conquer, we just wanted to work and survive. But all this has taught us that we can aspire to have a different quality of life and to be able to live in a different way. And that’s amazing.

I get emotional about all this. I’ve lived it with my colleagues. It is incredible.

Ana Ulin: You are also the ones who created it.

Marve Romero: Yes, exactly.

Ana Ulin: Is there anything else you want to say?

Marve Romero: Cooperativism is a different world. It helps us as individuals and as a community, to bring a better quality of life to our community, to our family.

Now we know that we can achieve certain goals and standardize this so that we all benefit, without having to exploit others, without having to endure humiliation and other things that sometimes happen because of the need to work.

The cooperative world gives a lot, and we continue growing. I think one day we will be able to say that we have something fairer for each individual. I hope it reaches the whole world.

This interview was translated and edited by Ana Ulin, Tech Workers Coalition volunteer.