The union representing New South Wales cleaners in public schools and government buildings wants the Chris Minns Labor government to take the contracts back.
The United Workers Union (UWU) said the multi-million dollar contract expires this year, which provides an opportunity to lift workers out of slave-like conditions.
Some schools, such as Sir Joseph Banks High, are joining the effort. Teachers there want cleaners employed by the state for health and safety reasons as well as the cleanliness of the school.
School cleaners receive very low pay, work in terrible conditions and have impossible workloads. Yet, they are employed by some very profitable multinational corporations, including the controversial Serco.
After 30 years of privatisation, the UWU said the only “winners” have been the private cleaning contractors, which have taken millions of dollars in profits.
According to the UWU, cleaners are among the state’s most injured workers as they rush from task to task. The cleaners report they have to skip meals due to their low wages not rising in a cost-of-living crisis.
The union says the privatised model fails on many fronts including the basic one — to ensure school cleanliness.
Teachers agree. The NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) said that school and TAFE cleaners need to be transitioned to direct government employment.
A unanimous decision from NSWTF’s June council meeting stated that cleaners employed by the government “would be better positioned to be granted the time, equipment and supplies they need to meet the demands of today’s schools”.
“We must make sure that cleaning in every school, including those in high growth areas where overcrowding and the use of demountable classrooms are common, are adequately resourced and staffed,” the NSWTF said.
It said contracting companies pay the fifth highest workers compensation premiums in NSW “because of the number of accidents occurring as a direct result of unsafe practices”.
The UWU argues that safe and clean schools is a core responsibility of the public education system. It says the system of privatised contracts “undermines both cleaning and employment standards by incentivising companies to engage in a race-to-the-bottom to be awarded contracts”. These companies then cut costs to make a profit.
The outsourcing model has “eroded accountability” between contractors and the school community, the UWU said.
“It is unacceptable that hundreds of millions of dollars of public money continues to be spent on a system in which companies profit while precarious work is endemic, workplace injuries are rife and the basic need of clean schools and buildings is not being satisfactorily delivered.”
Published in February, the report estimates that 7000 people are employed across 2241 schools in NSW. The NSW government paid out $518 million to cleaning contractors in 2024.
Cleaners receive an average hourly wage of just $24.07, 0.84 cents above the February minimum wage. At least three quarters report that their workload has increased over the past year.
Dr James Cockayne, the NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner warned a public forum in May that the 7000 public school cleaners could constitute modern slavery.
The outsourced contracts to four large corporations — Serco Facilities Management; ISS Facility Services; Ventia and Joss Facility — expire on December 31.
The UWU argues that now is the time for the NSW government to bring cleaning work back into the public sector. Doing so would “create safe, secure, quality jobs and improve cleaning standards”.
The UWU said the combined CEO’s pay of the three publicly traded companies in 2022 was $16.88 million. Individually, CEO’s pay, calculated hourly, is 94 to 173 times a cleaner’s wage. Ventia’s CEO Dean Banks even received a $540,000 cash bonus, on top of their wage, in 2021.
The need for quality, secure jobs for all workers across NSW becomes even more urgent in the cost-of-living and housing affordability crisis the UWU said.