CleanStart — Fighting for a Fair Deal for Cleaners

In every country, no matter how strong the recent economic upswing, workers are routinely ripped off and disrespected. They lack the power to stand up to their employers. In Hong Kong, steel erectors on construction sites marched in protest at the fact that they have suffered a savage decline in wages every year for six years — despite a booming construction sector. In Malawi, security guards employed by the world’s biggest security transnational have received not a day off in seven years — not weekends, not public holidays. In Britain, a giant insurance company demands that cleaners campaigning for a living wage be removed from their jobs — on the grounds that they pose a security risk. In the US, the service sector is built on minimum wage immigrant workers who are incapable of providing a decent standard of living for their families. In Germany, security workers in some parts of the country earn less than five Euros an hour. In Australia, the land of the ‘fair go’, cleaners see penalty rates — the payments made to cleaners for work after normal hours, on weekends and public holidays — disappear, workloads increase and wages fall. The proceeds of the ‘good times’ go to those with power — while those without it sit trapped at the bottom of the labour market. All this happens because unions in virtually every country are in retreat. Density is falling and there are very few signs that these trends will be reversed any time soon.