Judith Barber
On Saturday May 11, I made the 1,000km return trip from the Mid-North Coast to Parramatta with a bus full of fellow cleaners and union members. It was a 3am start and we hit torrential rain on the way down, but nothing was going to stop us from joining the United Workers Union rally calling on the NSW Labor Government to end the privatisation of school and government cleaning.
As tough as the drive was, the journey to win decent, safe and secure jobs for cleaners has been even harder.
Government cleaning services were privatised 30 years ago by the Liberal Government. I started on the job in 2004. I’ve worked for different contractors at multiple sites, including Bowraville Central School, where I work today. Over the years I’ve seen the consequences of a contracting model that puts profits over workers and services. There have been cuts to hours, understaffing, supplies haven’t been replaced and equipment is in disrepair. As a delegate, I take calls from members all over the state who have had the same experience.
Cleaners feel the brunt of this broken system. We pay the price with our knees, our backs and our shoulders. Incredibly, as an occupational group, contracted school cleaners have the fifth highest workers compensation premium in NSW.
During this cost-of-living crisis, cleaners are struggling.
In a recent survey by our union, 54.5% of cleaners said that they had missed meals because they’d run out of money and 75.8% said that they had delayed medical treatment for their family. The nature of the contracting model means that it’s impossible to bargain with individual employers for fair wage increases, and to make it worse, each time the contracts expire, cleaners are faced with uncertainty over their jobs, hours and accrued entitlements.
It’s clear who does benefit from this system though. The current whole-of-government cleaning contracts, which cover our state’s more than 2,000 public schools, as well as TAFE campuses, police and ambulance stations, electorate offices, court houses and other state government buildings, are worth more than $518 million per year combined. The companies that hold the contracts include massive multi-national and Australian corporations. Even a conservative estimate of profits would see these companies walking away with tens of millions of dollars of public money.
Things are badly in need of change.
With the election of the Minns Labor Government, we have our best chance in a generation to finally fix this mess. The current contracts expire at the end of this year and the government has fulfilled their election commitment to review the contracting model – a process I was pleased to participate in as a union delegate and one I’m confident has shone a light on the current system’s failures.
Cleaners know what’s at stake and we’ve been making our voices heard.
We’ve been in the papers and on the news, in parliament knocking on doors, and working within the party - passing motions at Country Conference and now gearing up to take a stand at State Conference.
The support from across the union movement has been incredible. On that rainy day in Parramatta we had the Teachers Federation, the Police Association, The Public Services Association and Unions NSW standing should-to-shoulder with cleaners. These unions know how valuable the work we do is to keep the workplaces of their members safe and clean.
This Labor Government has already shown its willingness to bring public services back into public hands with the decisions on Junee Correctional Center and Social Housing Maintenance. School and Government cleaning must be next.
Direct employment could be life changing for the state’s estimated 7,000 cleaners. It would get us off the endless wheel on contract cycles and would enable cleaners, and our union, to bargain directly with our employer. We are a low wage, majority women workforce that is hugely ethnically diverse. We deserve the same chance to negotiate over pay and conditions as the teachers, police officers and paramedics that we work alongside.
Creating, secure, decent family sustaining jobs for cleaners makes sense on so many levels – it’s a responsible use of public money, it supports our regions, and it can improve cleaning standards in our schools and public buildings.
It also goes to the core of who our party fights for and our belief in the capacity of government to directly deliver quality services.
At this State Conference we look forward to securing a commitment from the Minns Labor Government to end the privatization of school and government cleaning and to set us on a new path towards a sustainable model of direct employment.
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