LOW PAY AND WORKING TIME: THE CASE OF CONTRACT CLEANERS

Low pay is usually discussed in terms of hourly rates of pay. But from a worker’s point of view low pay is most directly experienced as inadequate when it is too low over the week, the month or the year. Causes of low pay can be seen to include insufficient hours of part-time work (underemployment) or irregular schedules that lead to intervals of joblessness. We look at the case of cleaners from the contract or commercial cleaning industry, using ABS data, documents and other secondary literature, as well as a program of interviews with cleaners and cleaning managers. We argue that cleaning work is characterised by low pay, short hours and high workloads. This unfortunate combination of job characteristics is anchored in the structure of the industry, the strategies of property owners, property tenants and cleaning companies, and the deficiencies of current systems of labour regulation and social security. Low pay is usually discussed in terms of hourly rates of pay. But from a worker’s point of view, low pay is most directly experienced as inadequate when it is too lo