En Passant

Build a Better Future sent me an email recently about the situation in Canberra (‘the A.C.T.’) with school cleaners.

As you may know from reports on this blog and elsewhere, cleaners at Federal Parliament House have been fighting to have their old wage restored after Tony Abbott’s government cut it. They walked off the job in July and now have bans in place on cleaning up after Federal Parliamentarians’ Christmas parties.

The Labor/Greens government in the A.C.T. seems to have the same Liberal Party contempt for cleaners, this time school cleaners. Six months ago the union covering school cleaners here, United Voice, raised concerns with Joy Burch, the Labor Party Minister for Education in the A.C.T., about the underpayment of wages of over $500,000 for some cleaners and bullying when they spoke out.

The lack of action from the Labor/Greens government saw the union and others (including the CFMEU) stage a protest on Wednesday outside the offices of the Education and Training Department to highlight the plight of school cleaners here in Canberra and put pressure on the local Labor/Greens government to fix the matter quickly.

Union representatives have called on the ACT Government to step in to enforce safe working conditions for migrant cleaners. Photo: Katie Burgess

To give you an idea of the issues, here is the email from Building a Better Future asking for support.  Shame, Labor, shame.

Hi John —

Migrant workers with few English skills are being mistreated and underpaid while cleaning ACT schools. The worst bit is that the ACT Government has known about this for the past six months and has taken no action against the two cleaning companies involved.

After six months of hoping the ACT Labor Government will act, it’s clear only public pressure will move them. Will you send the Education Minister Joy Burch a message asking her to support the migrant school cleaners?

The cleaners, many of whom are migrants and refugees, have been bullied, harassed and intimidated after they went public to the Canberra Times about the underpayments and unsafe working conditions.

Despite the evidence that has been presented to the Education Directorate, and personally by the cleaners to Minister Burch, no action has been taken to hold the unethical cleaning companies accountable.

Please, send Minister Joy Burch an email asking her to instruct her Directorate to cancel the cleaning contract.

These cleaners deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. It is clear that a new, ethical cleaning company is needed to take over the contracts at the ACT schools. Under the ‘continuity of employment’ rules, the cleaners will keep their jobs under a new contractor.

Sadly, this isn’t an issue that the local schools, the local principal or the local school teachers can control. Cleaning contracts are established and terminated by the Education and Training Directorate. They have lots of evidence and the ability to cancel the contracts with these unethical cleaning companies.

We need your help. Support these workers and say enough is enough. Send a letter to the Minister for Education Joy Burch, urging her to do the right thing by the workers.

Unions have always stood up for exploited workers, no matter what country they are from. Migrant workers in Australia are especially vulnerable to unscrupulous companies taking advantage of them, and this awful behaviour is rife in the contract cleaning industry. It’s even worse that tax-payers are paying these unethical cleaning companies.

These cleaners have been exceptionally brave to come forward and reveal the underpayments, the unsafe working conditions and the bullying they have experienced.

Please, show your support for them, and call on the ACT Labor Government to take action.

http://www.buildabetterfuturecbr.org.au/schoolcleaners

In union

Alex White
UnionsACT

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