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Celebrating cleaning and
cleaners in London
As part of a research project funded by the Economic
and Social Research Council (ESRC) to explore the impact
of work on identity and forms of political organisation,
Professor Jane Wills was able to team up with professional
photographer, Chris Clunn, to document the labour of
cleaners working in a large office building at Canary
Wharf. For more on the research project of which this
is part, please see http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/livingwage/
The photography work was part of a project conducted
within the ESRC Identities and Social Action Programme
coordinated by Tim Strangleman (London Met), Margaret
Wetherell and Kerry Carter (Open University) and funded
by the ESRC.
These pictures were taken with the permission of the
clients, the cleaning company and the cleaners themselves
in order to reflect the range of tasks involved in cleaning
a large office building, the skills involved in the
work and the ethnic diversity of the cleaners doing
the work.
All too often, the importance of cleaning is overlooked.
We all depend upon cleaners if we go to work on public
transport, if our children go to school, if our relatives
are in hospital, if our public spaces are pleasant to
visit and if our own workplaces are fit for purpose.
Cleaning is vital to making the city work but this research
project has highlighted the ways in which cleaning and
cleaners are overlooked.
Partly, this is due to the way in which cleaning has
been sub-contracted. Cleaners are generally not employed
by the people who occupy the buildings they clean. Our
schools, universities, hospitals, tube trains, offices
and public buildings are often cleaned by staff working
for a separate employer. Thus while core staff are given
pay rises, invited on training, pushed forward for promotion
or encouraged to attend the Christmas party, the sub-contracted
cleaners are often left out. While their own employers
might like to offer such things, their budgets have
been squeezed in the process of winning the contract.
The research has highlighted the potential power of
trade unions and community organisations working together
to address the plight of cleaners via the London living
wage campaign (see http://www.livingwage.org.uk/).
But the research has also highlighted the need for something
even more basic than this …
We need to value cleaning and cleaners.
It is vital that we recognise the skills that are involved
in cleaning and appreciate the people doing the work.
Once the work is respected, it will be easier to win
greater rewards for those doing the work. As one cleaner
at Canary Wharf put it during interview:
“The most important thing is not the money,
it’s respect, because once you have the respect,
everything else will flow.”
There are now powerful voices in the cleaning industry
who are trying to address this situation, to increase
the status of the industry and to move towards daytime
cleaning with improved terms and conditions of work
(see http://www.cleaningindustry.org).
Chris Clunn took these photographs and no part may be
reproduced in any form without prior permission of the
copyright owner (see also chrisclunn.com).
The pictures
Most offices in London are kept tidy during the day
and deep-cleaned by larger numbers of cleaners during
the night (or in the early hours of the morning). Here
we have documented the main tasks being done during
the day and night, aiming to highlight the ethnic diversity
of the cleaners doing the work.
In the building where we took the photographs there
are about 32 people cleaning during the day and 40 during
the night.
Our pictures include workers from Brazil, Britain, Colombia,
Ghana, Lithuania, Poland, St Lucia, Sierra Leone and
Sri Lanka but managers reported that there were other
nationalities represented too.
Cleaning now has a truly international workforce, there
is a world in each building, and a hundred stories to
tell.
World Copyright of the Christopher Clunn photographic
archives.
32 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AD
Tel. 020 7404 9646
Mobile 07967 604487 chrisclunn.com
email chris@chrisclunn.com
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