Cleaners have a good reason to be Glad

ON a day of action for cleaners around the world, a small group of workers are celebrating a victory over bullying and wage theft in Melbourne’s CBD cleaning industry.

More than 200 cleaners will vote today on a deal struck with Glad Group which delivers real pay rises, job security and an end to exploitative working conditions.

They claim the new Clean Start agreement is a “landmark victory” in the campaign to eliminate bullying and wage theft by dodgy cleaning subcontractors who underpay international students.

Melbourne city cleaners will now turn their focus to Glad’s biggest competitor, Consolidated Property Services, which has so far denied justice to its staff by refusing to sign the new Clean Start Agreement.
Fight goes on for cleaners around the world
Ratification of the new agreement by the workers coincides with International Justice Day for Cleaners and Security Guards, which highlights the low pay, long hours, precarious work and unsafe conditions of cleaners and security staff around the world.

The date commemorates events in 1990 in the United States when protestors from the hugely successful ‘Justice for Janitors’ campaign were confronted by police. Baton wielding officers tried to break up a janitors’ march in Los Angeles, and 38 of the cleaners were arrested. It is now a global day of action.

To mark International Justice Day for Cleaners and Security Guards, Melbourne’s cleaners are asking city workers to take ‘selfies’ wearing rubber gloves as a gesture of support for those who keep our workplaces safe and clean.

In the tradition of Justice for Janitors, international students and other city office cleaners waged a relentless public campaign demanding the Glad Group support the new Clean Start Agreement. This included 71 rowdy street protests targeting CBD office buildings as well as media and online pressure.

The Clean Start agreement provides above-inflation wage increases and higher pay for night and evening work, and enhanced job security provisions in an industry where short-term employment is pervasive.

Key to the deal, and effective immediately, is Glad’s commitment to ensure that cleaners working for subcontractors receive pay and rights equal to those directly employed. Sub-contracting is at the heart of abuses against international students who are vulnerable to rip-offs, fear and intimidation and who comprise more than half the city’s office cleaners.

“Our gleaming office towers have hidden from view the cleaning industry’s dirty secret of bullying, intimidation and wage theft.”

- Jess Walsh of United Voice

“This is a great win but it’s only the start. We need to convince other cleaning companies to treat cleaners with respect and reward them properly,” said United Voice Victorian secretary Jess Walsh.

“Consolidated Property Services is the biggest single employer of cleaners in the city. Cleaners are essential to this city functioning properly and they deserve more respect than they are getting from Consolidated.

“Consolidated is running dead in negotiations while staff pay has been frozen for two years.”

While Consolidated refuses constructive talks its workers are caught in a pay freeze and safeguards against subcontracting are not in place.

“Our gleaming office towers have hidden from view the cleaning industry’s dirty secret of bullying, intimidation and wage theft,” Ms Walsh said.

“Cut price subcontractors, used by ‘reputable’ cleaning companies, have created toxic workplaces to hide illegally low wages and other abuses.

“Glad is a leading player so its support for these reforms is an important step forward in our battle to rid Melbourne of this exploitation that shames our city and threatens our vital international education industry.”

A United Voice investigation last year uncovered illegal sub-contracting at a quarter of city office sites and also found that sub-contracted cleaners were paid as little as $15 an hour on night shift, a fraction of the agreed rate of $24.35 an hour.
‘This agreement is a wonderful result for all cleaners’
Lina Martinez, an international student from Colombia and Glad cleaner said students were vulnerable because they needed to work and often felt fearful and intimidated.

“My family cannot afford to support me over here so I need to work to pay my study fees and support myself,” she said.

“Coming to a developed country like Australia I was surprised to see people exploited at work, but students cannot afford to lose their jobs and so some keep quiet and end up being paid a lot less for doing the same work as others.

“This agreement is a wonderful result for all cleaners.”

The first Clean Start agreement lifted pay substantially for about 1500 cleaners. That agreement expired on June 30, 2013. The new Clean Start deal includes above-CPI wage rises of 12 per cent over four years.

Crucially, the new agreement aims to promote job security and ensure sub-contractors are only used when there is a need for specialised work not normally done by direct employees. If specialised skills are genuinely required, employees must receive Clean Start pay, minimum shift times and health and safety standards comparable to direct employees.

Prior to Clean Start office cleaning was beset by high levels of job insecurity. Typically cleaners can work for five or more contractors in the same office building across their career. The Clean Start Agreement enables them to keep their jobs and their long service leave when a new contractor wins the contract in their building.

But even while Glad’s cleaners are celebrating their new agreement, counterparts in Canberra fear their pay could be cut by up to 20% as a result of a purge of “red tape” by the Abbott Government.

It will no longer recognise Clean Start terms and conditions when negotiating contracts for cleaning and maintenance of government buildings.