In late May, when Gannett disclosed plans to outsource janitorial, plumbing and other office and plant maintenance work to ABM Facility Services, there were no promises made about improving the quality of services -- only about saving money.
Now, four months later, one of my readers says the changeover has left their building a mess. "It's absolutely ridiculous what we now have to go through to get any work authorized and scheduled," my reader says.
Their building was presumably part of phase one of the ABM contract, which covered 34 sites at U.S. Community Publishing, Gannett Publishing Services, TV stations, plus Corporate's headquarters in McLean, Va. I don't know whether or when the next phases were to start.
Has your site switched to ABM? How's it going so far? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
Their building was presumably part of phase one of the ABM contract, which covered 34 sites at U.S. Community Publishing, Gannett Publishing Services, TV stations, plus Corporate's headquarters in McLean, Va. I don't know whether or when the next phases were to start.
Has your site switched to ABM? How's it going so far? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
At CNY the building has never looked better, it is actually getting cleaned now.
ReplyDeleteWe have had two out of five sinks in the ladies restroom with "Out of Order' signs on them going on ten days now.The Arizona Republic building just seems to have a 1/2 done kind of feeling around it lately.
ReplyDeleteAT Florida Today, we never had such quick response before ABM took over the maintenance of our building. Now that there is some oversight with the slackers, and a paper trail follow their every move, the time from a request is submitted to someone actually show up to check on it has greatly improved.
ReplyDeleteI am not saying they have become more competent, just more responsive. They were a laughing stock before, and nothing got fixed. A hand written note with "Out of Order" taped or hung on the item that they didn't fix.
In short, response is up by a factor of 10, and actual results are only marginal better.
At the Florida Today ABM is Another Bad Move. The two that have been retained by ABM know as much about maintenance as my ass hole knows about snipe shooting.
ReplyDelete6:02, now that is some funny stuff right there. They should have kept Max, at least he did work. The 2 clowns they kept are miserable sobs.
ReplyDeleteAt our site, the rank-and-file security staff that stayed took about a 10% pay cut and now have to pay for medical insurance. Worse off: the mostly Latino cleaners who have had their hours cut but are expected to do the same amount of work.
ReplyDeleteSi,mucho trabajo, poco dinero!! ABM no es bueno.
ReplyDelete