Explainer

Comment

Economics

4 May 2023

5 min read

Cleaning up cleaning: the problem with split shift work

Unhealthy and unnecessary working practices impact unseen cleaners. It doesn’t have to be like that argues Ryan Gilfeather.

Ryan Gilfeather

Ryan Gilfeather explores social issues through the lens of philosophy, theology, and history. He is a Research Associate at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work.

A cleaner sweeps between large white interior walls of a concourse.

Photo by Verne Ho on Unsplash.

In offices across the country cleaners are often kept out of sight whilst the other workers do their jobs. Cleaners are instead brought in for two short shifts, the first starting as early as 1, 2 or 3 am, and a second beginning around 8pm. Most of us overlook this pattern of work, taking for granted that it is necessary.

However, dig a little deeper, and its insidious nature emerges. We begin to see how it is mostly unnecessary and harms the flourishing of cleaners in their health, family, and dignity. It treats small financial gains as worth more than human lives.

For many industries, cleaning does not need to happen in the early mornings and late nights. Consider the downsides of daytime cleaning. The cleaner would need to manoeuvre around colleagues at their desks and in meeting rooms, but they would still clean to a high standard in a similar timeframe. Their job does not need to be done during unsociable hours. There is a minor cost to the company in the office. The office worker might need to briefly step away from their desk for a moment as it is cleaned, they may be momentarily distracted by the sound of a hoover, and a meeting room may be out of action for a very short time. The only costs would be a tiny loss in efficiency and profits to the companies who hire these cleaners. Since the negative consequences of daytime cleaning, instead of split shifts at unsociable hours, are so marginal, the current working patterns are clearly unnecessary.

No choice, compelled to say yes

Importantly, these cleaners often do not have any other choice. I meet many of these cleaners in my work at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work. None of them choose to work split shifts at unsociable hours. For many, employment with better conditions is simply not available. About 27 per cent are migrants and often they lack English-speaking skills, preventing them from getting other kinds of jobs. 59 per cent have attained an education below the equivalent of C or 4 at GCSE, so it is hard for them to find other work. 17 per cent are ethnic minorities, who face greater barriers accessing other kinds of work. They have to work, they often have no better choices than cleaning, and in this industry they cannot say no to these working patterns. In this way, they are compelled to say yes to these kinds of split shifts.

Split shifts deadly consequences

This working pattern damages health. A recent medical study demonstrates that working night shifts, a similar pattern to split shifts, more than doubles the odds of developing breast cancer Another study shows that shift-work disturbs worker’s circadian rhythms. This in turn leads to problems with cancer, heart health, mental health, and more. Split shifts have deadly consequences for cleaner’s health.

Eroding family time

Split shifts also steal cleaner’s time from their families. When cleaners earn below the real living wage, their family relationships suffer; 48 per cent say that their wage level has negatively affected their relationship with their children. For many, poverty wages force cleaners to take on two or more jobs. As Angus Ritchie, an Anglican priest, academic, and campaigner for marginalised communities puts it, poverty wages force workers to:

‘to choose between spending enough time with their children and having enough money to provide for them.’

These cleaners, who are often on poverty wages too, may only be able to briefly see their children between the end of school and the beginning of the nightshift, but will miss out on caring for them in the morning and enjoying extended periods of quality time. Therefore, when employers unnecessarily force these working hours upon cleaners, it also harms their relationships with their families.

Denying dignity

These patterns of work also render cleaners invisible. In an Equality and Human Rights Commission report from 2014, cleaners spoke about how they were made to feel ‘invisible’ and like the ‘lowest of the low.’ It is hardly surprising that they have this experience when the patterns of work we force upon them are designed to literally stop office workers from seeing them. Cleaners do crucial work which enables the broader enterprise of offices all around the country to function, yet they remain hidden away, their existence and contribution unseen and unacknowledged. Needless to say, these unnecessary split shifts take away their dignity.

Why value humanity

Campaigning to oppose this practice are Christians. Here’s why. The Bible and its tradition teaches that all human beings share the same inextinguishable value. As part of the story of creation says,

“God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.”

Over the centuries Christians have interpreted this passage as affirming the same fundamental value of every person as one made in the image of God. Every person in some way dimly mirrors God’s inestimable goodness and love, and is, therefore, of greater value than all the riches of the world. To treat someone as less valuable than us or material goods is to deny the reality of how God created the world.

Split shifts at unsociable hours, however, represents the opposite belief. As argued above, these patterns of working are largely unnecessary, and only lead to small financial gains for the companies who hire the cleaners through tiny increases in efficiency. However, these small riches are treated as worth more than the flourishing of lives which are of inestimable value because they are made in the image of God. Fractional gains in money are placed above their ongoing health, their family relationships, and their dignity through recognition. These meagre financial rewards are more treasured than the flourishing of lives made in the image of God.

The working patterns are bad for cleaners. Not just because they damage health, but more fundamentally, because they deny the reality of God’s desire for creation. Enforcing split-shifts in pursuit of financial gain values small amounts of money above the flourishing of human beings, the infinitely valuable image of God, in their health, family, and dignity.

Christians are beginning to oppose this practice. For example, in 2017, three Christian organisations (Centre for Theology and Community, Church Mission Society, and the church, St Andrew by the Wardrobe) launched Clean for Good. This ethical cleaning company treats cleaners fairly; they pay the Real Living Wage and give holiday leave, sick pay, training and guaranteed working hours. Crucially, they also don’t force cleaners into working anti-social hours. They offer cleaners working conditions and hours which enable them to flourish in their health, family, and dignity, because they truly believe that these workers are infinitely valuable, being made in the image of God.

Article

Comment

Grenfell disaster

Justice

Death & life

Politics

4 September 2024

7 min read

Grenfell: a tale of two towers

The Inquiry offers an opportunity to change the way we treat each other

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

A wrapping around the Grenfell Tower bears a giant green heart.

The Blowup on Unsplash.

Graham Tomlin was Bishop of Kensington at the time of the Grenfell Tower fire. This is the first of a short series of articles reflecting on this milestone in our national life.

The Grenfell Inquiry report is brutal. None of the companies involved in the renovation of Grenfell Tower escape. Arconic, Kingspan, Rydon, Celotex, Exova and many others – all have a lot to answer for. Listening to the statement by Sir Martin Moore-Bick and reading the report, words such as ‘failure’, ‘dishonesty’, ‘misleading’, and ‘defective’ sounded like a tolling bell throughout his account.

This was a tragedy that was decades in the making. Reports came out, warnings were issued and routinely ignored. A government which led a campaign of de-regulation without looking at the consequences for safety, a local council that failed to plan ahead for such an event, a tenant management organisation that treated the tenants they were supposed to serve with disdain, all played their part. The construction industry fared even worse. A culture of unholy competition, ‘value engineering’ (another term for deception), cost-cutting, a scramble for market share all took precedence over the safety of the people who were going to live in the newly clad flats of Grenfell Tower.

In the past, initial reports such as those on Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland and on the Hillsborough disaster, were weak affairs, failing to listen to the voices of victims, too careful to preserve the status quo, only leading to further anger, and further reports which finally began to address the key issues. This report has not pulled its punches – perhaps because they kept the human side of the tragedy in mind throughout.

In the early stages, in an inspired move, the Inquiry decided to offer an opportunity for bereaved family members to simply describe the people who died in the fire. It was intensely moving as the richness and colour of each person was described, celebrated and mourned. As a result, this Inquiry has never quite lost the human nature of this tragedy and I suspect that is why its results have been so hard-hitting.

No blame for the victims - instead he demands a radical national repentance, a re-examination of deeper social and spiritual trends, and for a radical turnaround of attitude.

Jesus and another tower

Remembering the human scale of the disaster is vital, yet in itself, it does not lead to change. At one point in his public teaching, Jesus was asked about another disaster involving a tower which led to the tragic death of a large number of people. At some point during Jesus’ time in Jerusalem, it seems a tower collapsed in a part of the city called Siloam, killing 18 people. This tragedy clearly had a significant impact across the nation, and people started asking what it meant, and what it said about the society in which they lived.

Jesus' words were harsh:

“Those who died when the tower in Siloam fell – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.’”

No blame for the victims - instead he demands a radical national repentance, a re-examination of deeper social and spiritual trends, and a profound change of mindset. If they don’t, such disasters will continue to happen. When disaster strikes, it doesn’t say anything much about those caught up in it, but it does give us an opportunity to take a good look at ourselves.

Jesus said that the two most basic commandments, the things we should set out to do every day of our lives, were to love God and to love our neighbour - who is deserving of love because they are first made and loved by God. The Grenfell story is an object lesson in what happens when those commandments get ignored. This is what happens when these commandments are superseded by other imperatives, such as to increase market share, to beat the competition or to safeguard the reputation of our own organisation.

Grenfell was the result of a culture that has become so individualistic that we have lost sight of the fact that we are our brothers’ (and sisters’) keepers, that we have a responsibility for each other, and that we find purpose and meaning in loving our neighbours as we love ourselves, whoever they happen to be. I am sure that the employees of Arconic, Rydon, Kingspan and the Tenant Management Organisation of RBKC, would have done anything they could to ensure that they and their families enjoyed a safe and secure home. They simply failed to do that for those they were meant to serve through their work. They took care of themselves and their own. They lost sight of the people their work affected. They did not take care of their neighbour.

It is the individuals and institutions that have the resilience and flexibility to face up to failure, learn the lessons and to be open to change which ultimately excel.

What happens now?

Matthew Syed’s 2015 book Black Box Thinking looked at responses to catastrophic failure. He contrasted the approach of the medical profession with the aviation industry. Too often, he argued, when an error is made in the world of healthcare, the instinct is to cover up failure for fear of litigation or in order to protect reputations. As a result, he suggested, the same mistakes are often repeated, which means that thousands of people continue to die in hospitals every year due to preventable error. When a plane crashes, however, the ‘black box’ is recovered, data painstakingly analysed, and no stone is left unturned in order to determine the exact causes of the disaster to make sure that it never happens again. As a result, plane travel has become one of the safest means of transport we have.

The companies and organisations that were meant to protect the residents of Grenfell failed in that duty. Yet the moral of Syed’s story is that failure is not something to be feared — but an opportunity to change. It is the individuals and institutions that have the resilience and flexibility to face up to failure, learn the lessons and to be open to change which ultimately excel. It is what the Christian church calls confession and repentance – the willingness to admit when we have got something wrong, bear the consequences, ask for forgiveness, resolve to learn from the error of our ways and to become a better person through it. Repentance is not wallowing in self-pity or hiding in a corner from the wagging finger of guilt; it is an invitation to honesty, to growth and to transformation.

Those responsible will need to face justice. Yet if we allocate blame, punish the guilty, and then carry on as before, then there is no guarantee that something like this will not happen again. We might issue new types of building regulations, or safety measures in construction, but even that would not be enough. The kind of repentance that Jesus, and indeed the Grenfell Tower fire calls for is deeper - a radical look at the way we live together in our society.

This involves all of us. As Andrew O’Hagan put it in a long article soon after the fire in the London Review of Books:

“In all the loosening of cares and controls and emergency services, it’s not just the current government but a succession of them that lie behind those deaths, and who, if not all of us, voted such vulnerability into existence? No one did well. If civic life is dead, with a 24-storey tombstone beside the Westway, it died in the times in which we too lived, and by the values we lived by. The point of a society, if we have one, is that when bad things happen, it’s everybody’s concern.”

Grenfell is such an opportunity that we dare not let pass. If we carry on as normal, with our atomised individualism, our addiction to comfort, our spiritual poverty, our disregard for our neighbours, we would miss a huge opportunity to address some of the deeper issues in our life together, not to speak of refusing to heed the call of Jesus for true repentance.

In his statement in the House of Commons, Keir Starmer pledged a “profound shift in culture and behaviour.” I hope - and pray - this is what happens. Yet it will take more than changes to building regulation and for safety. It needs spiritual and not just political change, as I’ve argued here before. It would mean each of us looking at ourselves, and the cultures of the organisations of which we are a part (yes - including the church), and responding to the call to love God – to re-orient our lives around something, someone bigger and better than us – and to love our neighbours as much as we love ourselves. What if Grenfell sparked a fundamental change back to that more connected vision of who we are and what we are here for? Grenfell - and this report - is a shock to our system. Let us not waste it.

Listen to Graham discuss Grenfell on BBC Radio 4's PM programme.

Listen from 50:56.