CLEANING UP THE SECTOR : A BETTER FUTURE OF

While we did not find any estimates of the rate of work intensification in commercial cleaning in the UK, on the other side of the Atlantic in the US, the SEIU-USWW union estimates that cleaner workloads have as much as doubled since the mid-2000s, under the growing influence of increasingly competitive contract bidding.6 In 2020, US cleaning workloads were estimated to have risen by 8.6% in just. [...] One study found that the work intensity required in British workplaces continued to increase between 2012 and 2017.10 Significantly, the proportion of workers in jobs where it was required to work at ‘very high speed’ for most or all of the time increased by 4% to 31% in 2017.11 In the following sections, we consider some of the key drivers behind high workloads in the cleaning sector. [...] Autonomy Cleaning up the sector: a better future of work for cleaners 24 UNDERPAYMENT Many of the problems described by cleaners in the Listening Campaign reflect those described in the research literature on the subject. [...] Autonomy Cleaning up the sector: a better future of work for cleaners 33 PROPOSALS SOLUTIONS OFFERED BY CLEANERS IN THE LISTENING CAMPAIGN In our Imagination Workshops, cleaners outlined a number of solutions to the problems they described in the Listening Campaign. [...] Transparent contracts A key problem mentioned in the Listening Campaign was the discrepancy between the terms of contract and the reality of the job.