One of my former positions was as a Safety Director and Subcontract Manager for a Contracted Janitorial company. Now we cleaned malls and department stores but some of the things our Subcontractors did horrified me at the time. We had an incident where the leader of a sub was paid and then skipped town. Suddenly all the equipment vanished from the supermarkets they were working at. In another incident an entire floor stripping crew was picked up in the middle of the night by the INS, all illegal workers. In a third most disturbing incident, the workers crashed through doors and displays with the ride-on scrubber and automatic buffer machines. We had to foot the bill and then deduct it from their pay. The reason for choosing a subcontractor is that they do the work and they worry about getting a staff and handling all the paperwork surrounding it. Unfortunately most subcontractors do not do their paperwork entirely. Most don't worry about immigration laws or are in fact themselves from another country and are helping others out from their country of origin. These workers are not all hispanic, most of workers in our subs were from Eastern European countries. Some companies have their own equipment but some need to use your equipment. What some people may see as maintenance is down-right destruction in our eyes. Our company lost several peices of expensive equipment from Subcontract abuse. Now not all subcontractors out there work like this. But you need to check into the companies you bring in, especially in a museum setting. In a department store or mall they can break displays or columns as we had happen at one location. In a museum there are items far more priceless then a column. Just from my experience with the janitorial trade I would seriously caution anyone about the company they bring in to clean their museum. Check their history, how long have they been around under their current name?, what is their maintenance policy, do they have their own equipment? Also make sure that any contract you have with them includes that you are "Additionaly Insured" for all General Liability. This way if something happens it will fall back on them. Most companies you have to ask them to put this on their insurance. You must also get a copy of their insurance with your name on it. Richard Baker Volunteer Museum Tech at Harpers Ferry NHP ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).