Graham Matthews
More and more incidents of bosses using the federal government's new Work Choices laws to sack "troublemakers", slash the pay of casuals or "restructure" their workplaces are surfacing in the media and, in the lead-up to May Day marches and the Australian Council of Trade Union (ACTU)-called national day of action on June 28, trade unions and workers are fighting the attacks in a variety of ways.
This includes a campaign by workers in one of the lowest-paid industries - cleaning. The Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union (LHMU), along with the New Zealand Service and Food Workers Union, launched the "Clean start for cleaners" campaign on April 20 with rallies in major cities around both countries.
The campaign aims to secure better working conditions for the approximately 95,000 contract cleaners in Australia and the thousands more in New Zealand. In Australia, the campaign is also necessary to prevent the massive reduction in cleaners' wages and conditions that is likely to occur under Work Choices.
In Sydney, the campaign launch attracted 200 people, including cleaners, and representatives of unions and community organisations.
Sister Lindy Johnson, representing the Catholic bishop of Parramatta, pledged her support, saying, "The fundamental human dignity of workers is under threat from Work Choices". A young Australian-Thai woman, Nott, told the rally: "Cleaners' hours are cut without warning, but we are expected to clean the same [area] as before. Cleaners have many problems at work ... We need a fresh start. I believe together we can win."
Herry Heryadi, Yulianto Dekon and Hendi, three Sydney cleaners originally from Indonesia, told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly that they're working harder now, doing more hours for less money. Sue Ning, also a cleaner, told GLW: "They've just made a lot of changes. There's always too much work. They want you to do this and do that when it's not our job."
In Melbourne, Margarita Windisch reports, 150 people crammed into St Francis Church for the campaign launch. They included employees of cleaning companies Tempo, Eski and Mutual.
Paul Gonzales, who works long hours in two jobs to feed his family and is an LHMU workplace delegate, encouraged cleaners to unite and get more organised through this campaign. Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Brian Boyd pledged the union movement's support for the campaign and called on all unions to support the June 28 national day of action against Work Choices.
Jon Lamb reports from Brisbane that 70 people gathered at St Mary's Church in South Brisbane. LHMU state secretary Ron Monaghan highlighted cleaners' concern that Work Choices will further undermine already poor wages and work conditions. A cleaner with 20 years' experience explained that the constant pressure of job insecurity that accompanies changing contracts and bosses, and the push to do more work in less time, is taking its toll on cleaners. The next campaign action in Brisbane is at noon on April 27 at 1 Eagle Street in the city.
In Adelaide, reports Emma Murphy, 200 people attended the campaign launch, supported by some construction workers who joined it during their lunch break. A solidarity funds collection for locked-out meat workers was very well received.
According to the LHMU discussion paper A Clean Start for the Property Industry, a cleaner in Australia is required to clean, on average, 850-950 square metres per hour, compared to the North American benchmark of 300-400 square metres. Although the award wage for cleaners in NSW is $16.39 per hour, higher than the federal minimum wage of $12.30, cleaning contractors have been cutting shift times whenever a pay rise is granted, forcing workers to do the same work in less time.
The average wage for cleaners is just $8200 per year, one-seventh of the average full-time wage in Australia. "Even more striking", the LHMU paper explains, "the gap between the average CEO's earnings and the average cleaner's earnings is 414:1".
Cleaners' shifts are typically short - two to four hours - forcing many to take on two or more jobs to make ends meet. Sixty to seventy per cent of cleaners are part-time or casual workers and the majority are women from non-English speaking backgrounds with dependent children.
A goal of the "clean start" campaign is to establish a set of employment principles for the whole industry to circumvent the "race to the bottom" in wages and conditions that is encouraged by Work Choices, and by cleaning contractors trying to undercut each other to win contracts. The campaign appeals to building owners, going over the heads of property services companies and cleaning contractors, to ensure decent minimum standards for cleaners, including limits on the area to be cleaned per hour, the right to bargain collectively and job security.
LHMU organiser Roxana Bestrin-Fuentes told GLW: "The main goal is to make cleaning jobs better, and to bring some regularity to the cleaning industry ... creating an environment where cleaning jobs will be more secure where there's a change of contract." She added: "[Many] cleaners have to rely on two or more jobs ... they have to spend so much time travelling from home to their jobs or between jobs. They also get taxed so much more because they've got an extra job, so we hope to create better and longer hours [with no extra workload], but not necessarily an hourly pay rise."
Cleaners' responses to the campaign have been mixed, Bestrin-Fuentes said. "Cleaners who are more like full-time, who work during the day and may have been in the industry for many years, have seen working conditions deteriorate ... They are very angry and a lot see this campaign as a real opportunity.
"The majority, the part-time cleaners ... are mostly recent migrants or international students and they have a range of altogether different issues. For example, international students can work no more than 20 hours [a week] so there's a lot of cash-in-hand [payments] and subcontracting going on, making them the most likely to be exploited and the least [able] to do anything about it."
For "clean start" campaign updates, visit From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, April 26, 2006.
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