Public school cleaners in New South Wales are given less than a minute to mop floors, clean toilets and empty bins each day, with a major union claiming the “impossible workload” has led to one of the state’s highest worker’s compensation premiums.
Documents obtained by the United Workers Union detail how cleaners in state public schools are being asked to complete several hundred individual tasks each day as part of their daily work routine.
A copy of contract specifications for one of a handful of private companies contracted to clean the state’s schools show how cleaners are expected to complete 179 “regular” tasks as well as dozens more classed as “periodic”.
According to the union, those “regular” jobs are repeated multiple times to add up to more than 600 every day, based on the workload of an average cleaner. This equates to about 47 seconds a task.
Linda Revill, property services coordinator at UWU, said the “stopwatch approach” had led to “unsafe workloads” for one of the lowest-paid professions in the state.
“Cleaners are stressed about not finishing their jobs, they are injuring themselves in the rush and students, teachers and schools are left without the required cleaning,” she said.
The UWU points to iCare premiums as evidence cleaners in public schools have one of the highest injury rates in NSW; the most recent data from the state insurer shows the industry ranks alongside saw millers in terms of its classification.
Premiums for cleaners in the public system are also double what they are for the same job in the non-government school system.
“The demoralising truth is NSW public school cleaners have the highest injury rates in NSW from more than 500 different professions, with injury rates equalled only by saw millers,” Revill said.
The union has used the document to call for NSW Labor and the Coalition to scrap the private contracting system ahead of the state election in less than two weeks.
“The privatised approach where cleaners are treated as robots rather than human beings has to stop,” Revill said.
After the union raised its concerns about cleaner workloads, Labor promised to review the contracts, which it says will be completed by 2024 should the party win government.
“School cleaners work incredibly hard and only thanks to their efforts have students been able to return to the classroom across the state,” she said.
“An elected Minns Labor government will review the cleaning services in NSW public schools to ensure these services are high quality into the future.”
The union says the contract specification document – seen by Guardian Australia – equates to cleaners “being exposed to unsafe workloads daily”. It provided breakdowns of the number of rooms and buildings cleaned by individual workers each day to justify that claim.
Justine Hughes, a cleaner who works in a public school in regional NSW, said that the workload outlined by the union matched her experience over 11 years in the system.
Hughes, 57, said the reality was that “some things don’t get done because you do not have the time humanly to do it”.
She found it “demoralising”, she said, “to never have enough time for what they want you to do”.
“So many people come in and last a week or less than a week and say I can’t do this,” she said. “There’s never any ‘great job’, or anything like that, It’s always not good enough.”
Hughes said she had injured herself twice while working, including one incident after which she claimed worker’s compensation, and said she believed her workload played a part.
“Because you’re not thinking about yourself, instead of thinking ‘I should be bending my knees when I pick up this bucket of water’ you’re just rushing around trying to get everything done,” she said.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Education said the contracts had been implemented in 2019 as part of a “whole-of-government cleaning contract was implemented worth $1.7bn.
“We undertook extensive stakeholder consultation in relation to the cleaning contracts after a tender process. The new contract incorporated the cleaning standards that have been applied to all NSW schools in previous contracts,” the spokesperson said.
While it said the “health, safety and wellbeing of students and staff in our schools is of paramount importance”, the department also said it was the contractors responsibility “to manage their staff including identifying risks and controlling those risks to ensure their health, wellbeing, and safety”.
“If injuries occur the cleaning contractors are required under NSW legislation to provide the necessary coverage and support for their staff,” the spokesperson said.
“If schools have concerns regarding the standard of cleaning at their schools, they can raise these with us and we will work with the cleaning contractors to ensure that the standards are met.”
