B777-200 had to be dispatched with a dead APU battery.

Narrative

When I walked into the cockpit; two mechanics were trying to erase APU battery charger and APU battery messages. I did my set up and talked to dispatch regarding these issues and asked him to confirm that we were legal to dispatch ETOPS with no APU battery. He confirmed that we were legal as long as we added fuel for the APU burn since we would have to leave it running entire flight. I told him that I was pretty annoyed that we had to dispatch in this manner due to someone leaving the switches in the wrong place all night and draining the battery. He agreed; as did the Mechanic. It is not uncommon to find switches in very odd positions in the morning and sometimes the seats tilted all the way back. The Mechanic told me that it is the ramp guys who tow the aircraft to and from the hanger that move switches and pull circuit breakers (unbelievable). We are putting these multi-million dollar aircraft in the hands of non-licensed people. Not only do I worry about what might be touched or pulled or moved since it could have dire affects; but I am disturbed with the lack of supervision of these employees. I am truly bothered that they and not a Mechanic are handling these aircraft. They do not have licenses they could lose; only a minimum wage job. If the company thinks this is a way to save money; they're wrong. In the long run; this will come back to bite this management's decisions.