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Canberra Today 25°/29° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Hospital cleaners fight for better pay

SPECIALIST cleaners at Canberra Hospital haven’t had a pay rise in five years and the ACT government should be “ashamed”, says United Voice organiser Erryn Cresshull. 

The cleaners, who are employed by the multinational company ISS, will go on strike today after not seeing a pay rise since 2012. 

Ms Cresshull says the ACT government has clamped down on the ISS contract, so much that the company says they can’t pay the cleaners any more than an extra 64 cents an hour. 

“These specialist cleaners are told they are ‘part of the health team’ yet they are the only workers at the hospital whose pay isn’t even keeping up with the cost of living,” she says. 

“Hospital cleaners have become the working poor of ACT Health, but they deserve a job they can count on.

“Their specialist cleaning work includes cleaning operating theatres, labour wards, infectious and isolation areas, laboratories and the mortuary. It is vitally important work for our community that requires experience, knowledge and skills.

“The ACT government must remove the tight screws from this cleaning contract and award an appropriate pay rise that reflects the rising cost of living over the past five years.

“Our hospital cleaners are essential to keeping the community safe and healthy.”

Union delegate and Canberra Hospital cleaner Linda Morrison says It’s disgusting that we are used as cheap labour and treated like second class workers.

“We have more responsibilities and an increased workload every year, our pay rates need to rise substantially, we can’t keep falling behind. We want to get on with our jobs and avoid an escalation of industrial activity, but we will keep fighting until we win,” she says. 

The cleaners are calling on the ACT government and Minister for Health to do the decent thing and fix the contract and award them a pay rise in line with the rising cost of living over the past five years.

The protest will take place outside the Canberra Hospital, from 12.30pm to 1.30pm, today, November 23.

 

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