100 signatures reached
To: Victorian State Government, Federal Government, Cleaning Companies
No Job Losses in Cleaning During the Covid Pandemic!
This campaign has ended.
We call on the government and on the cleaning companies to ensure that there are no job losses in cleaning during the pandemic. Cleaners should be hired in record numbers to get the pandemic under control.
State Government
We call on the Andrews government to implement the following measures:
Reinstate the casuals who were performing deep cleaning in schools.
Hire cleaners directly, as is the policy in the ACT, rather than contracting out to private companies.
Invest at least as much money into cleaning as is invested in policing the lockdown restrictions. Why not hire five hundred cleaners to do regular deep cleaning of the Flemington and North Melbourne public housing estates? If the state government invests in training large numbers of cleaners in deep cleaning and infection control, this will make a big difference for the pandemic.
Legislate that public areas such as shopping centres have regular deep cleans for the duration of the pandemic.
Federal Government
We call on the Federal Government to implement the following measures:
Jobkeeper should be made available to all migrant workers and casuals.
The government should require companies to pay pandemic leave to anybody who needs it. Cleaners especially should not have to use up our annual leave to take time off work when we need to self-isolate. This is important to public safety.
Private Companies
We call on cleaning companies to implement the following measures:
No sackings of cleaners.
Cleaners who cannot access government payments to be prioritised for shifts.
This petition has been written exclusively by cleaners who are members of the United Workers Union. We work in schools, in shopping centres and in offices. We wipe your floors. We expose ourselves to your contaminated surfaces. We keep you safe. We deserve better.
Why is this important?
Cleaners have never been more important to society. We are on the front line of the battle against COVID 19. However cleaners are not being treated with respect during the pandemic. Large numbers of cleaners have lost their jobs under lockdown restrictions.
Even worse, many cleaners who have lost work cannot access Jobkeeper or Jobseeker. The cleaning industry has largely been built on the backs of migrant workers, but Jobkeeper and Jobseeker are only available to Australian citizens.
Cleaners should not be going hungry at a time like this. Let's take care of cleaners so that cleaners can take care of society.