United Voice

Business travellers using Melbourne Airport today could be confronted with filthy toilets, dirty food courts and overflowing bins as cleaners strike for 24 hours in a fight for fair pay.

“Around 55,000 people pass through Melbourne Airport each day, so the terminal has to be cleaned around the clock. Without the cleaners doing their essential job today, the airport is going to get very dirty,” says Ben Redford, Assistant Victorian Secretary of United Voice, the Cleaners Union.

Cleaners in the Qantas domestic terminal are protesting Spotless’s refusal to reinstate a $1600 airport allowance, which cleaners working for ISS in the Virgin and international terminals receive for doing the very same work.

Cleaners started the 24-hour strike at 10pm last night (Sunday night), following a weekend of rolling stoppages.

“If you’re flying in to Melbourne today, then use the toilet on the plane before you land. If you’re departing Melbourne, make sure you go before you leave home,” Redford says.

“We don’t want to unduly inconvenience business travellers today, so cleaners have issued a survival guide for everyone using the airport,” Redford adds.

The survival guide is being circulated through Twitter and Facebook (http://pic.twitter.com/KM6yC9u) and advises travellers to bring toilet paper and soap.

Two weeks ago, an Australian Electoral Commission ballot of cleaners returned 95 per cent support for industrial action. On September 2 , cleaners met Spotless for urgent crisis talks in a last-ditch bid to avert strike action

But Spotless seems hell-bent on forcing a strike, continuing to tell cleaners they should be paid $1600 less than other cleaners at Melbourne Airport.

“Cleaners have done everything they can to avoid strike action, but Spotless insists on paying them $1600 less than other cleaners at the airport receive for doing the very same job,” Redford says

“Spotless has enjoyed revenues of more than $2.5 billion in the past year, but still it refuses to pay fairly the very cleaners who work so hard to contribute to the company’s thriving bottom line,” he says.

“Spotless’s refusal to do the right thing by some of the lowest-paid workers in the country has left them with no choice but to go on strike today,” says Redford.

“Most of the cleaners on strike are earning around $16.50 an hour, so the $1600 allowance Spotless is denying them makes all the difference when it comes to paying their bills and supporting their families.”

In July, airport cleaners working in the international terminal for ISS Cleaning won a new union agreement that provides annual pay increases of four per cent. It also restores an airport allowance that was stripped away during the award-modernisation process.

Airport cleaners have met with Spotless four times since April. Initially, it refused to even meet, but Fair Work Australia ordered it to do so via a majority-support determination.

Further info: Adam Cathro, United Voice, Media Officer, 0413 239 665