Documents cleaning 63 results

"The aim of this article is to discuss the problem of false (bogus) self-employment and other precarious forms of employment in the ‘grey area' between genuine self-employment and subordinate employment in Sweden. Why has this area developed in a longer and shorter perspective? How does the use of disguised and ambiguous forms of employment affect workers, industrial relations and regular labour standards? Examples are given from the construction, road haulage and cleaning industries. The article indicates that work in the grey area has become more and more common in recent years, not only in the context of east-west labour migration, but also among Swedish workers. The author also discusses this development."

"One aspect of demographic ageing is the growing demand for domestic and care services. This highlights the increasingly central role of domestic work. The emergence of digital labour platforms in this context represents a significant shift within a sector characterised by informality, weak labour protections and complex social needs. This paper offers a first comparative mapping of home care and cleaning service platforms across six European countries – Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain – representing different welfare and regulatory systems. The study investigates two questions: (i) Do these platforms contribute to the formalisation of domestic work, or do they risk reinforcing informal practices? (ii) What organisational patterns have emerged across national contexts and how are they shaped by different welfare regimes? By cross-referencing two key dimensions – management of the matching process and regulation of employment relationships – the article develops a fourfold typology of digital platforms: marketplaces, digital agencies, on-demand platforms, and regulated marketplaces. Although all platforms present themselves formally as intermediaries, each type performs this role in distinct ways, with varying implications for employment arrangements and working conditions. Moreover, the findings reveal cross-national variation in terms of the prevalence of digital platforms. Countries characterised by higher public service provision, such as Denmark, have a minimal presence. Beyond national specificities, however, the nature of the service provided – cleaning versus care – constitutes a more salient factor in platform organisational models. The marketplace is more dominant in cleaning services and digital agencies than in care services."

"BackgroundWorkplace risk assessment methods require expertise which cleaning companies may lack.ObjectiveTo present a methodological, easy-to-implement approach for risk characterisation of cleaning work, and elaborate on its applicability.Materials and methodDeterminants of chemical exposure including, inter alia, frequency of use (?), use of PPE (?) and spray bottle (?), dilution of chemicals (?), and workplace ambience (?) are used to characterise risk of cleaning work. These, are assigned numerical factors according to how they manifest in work situations. The conceptualised assessment factor, presented as ? = ????????? is used to formulate work risk factor, ?RF. Calculating ?RF for workplaces with many cleaning workers and work patterns, agreement on how tasks are performed, use of PPE and spray bottles among minimum 60% of participants was set as acceptance criteria for uniformity of workplace trend. Risk characterisation ratio (RCR) used to compare cleaning work is obtained by collating actual ?RF to a hypothetical minimum exposure ideal ?RF.ResultsAssessing different work situations, cleaning Shopping Centre gave the lowest RCR = 1.65, whereas travel terminals had the highest RCR = 7.41. Offices, hospital and kindergarten cleaning gave RCR = 4.05, 4.47 and 4.82 respectively. From RCRs, the largest disparity was between shopping centre and terminals; the least was between office and hospital, and similarly between hospital and kindergartens cleaning.ConclusionThe approach enables evaluation of work situation establishing the risk of exposure to chemicals. Use of determinants of exposure makes the approach a versatile tool for determination of risk of exposure."

"Eastern and Central European labour migration following the EU enlargement has significant impact on the Nordic labour markets. This article demonstrates, through sector-based case studies in Denmark, how labour migration influences working condition and wages in two sectors that have so far only been sparsely studied: the agriculture and cleaning industries. The high inflow of labour migrants is used by some employers to bypass and undermine the institutionalized class compromise, by employing EU8/2-workers at lower wages and often without collective agreements coverage frequently combined with below average working conditions. This put strains on the Danish agreement-based model of industrial relations, potentially leading to a more segmented labour market as well as replacement of native, mainly low-skilled workers with EU8/2-workers. "

"L'articolo presenta una ricerca riguardante le esperienze negoziali vissute dai dirigenti sindacali delle sette province venete nei settori del commercio e del pulimento, nell'ambito di uno studio che ha coinvolto anche i funzionari di alcune associazioni datoriali. I recenti cambiamenti prodotti dalle normative nazionali hanno spinto verso una forte de-regolazione in materia di orari di lavoro, ma hanno nel contempo aperto nuovi spazi di negoziazione. Sul piano della contrattazione collettiva aziendale, le organizzazioni dei lavoratori sono riuscite a intervenire con successo rispetto alla ri-regolazione dell'orario nelle aziende di maggiori dimensioni. Le tematiche relativa alla qualità della prestazione lavorativa sono invece troppo spesso assenti dai contratti collettivi aziendali. Nonostante questi sviluppi sul piano della contrattazione collettiva, la presenza sindacale rimane limitata e i funzionari sindacali svolgono spesso azioni di tutela individuale."

""Ce n'est pas parce qu'on nettoie la merde des autres qu'on n'existe pas !" Pour Ana, immigrée et salariée du secteur de la propreté, la question qui se pose est avant tout celle de la reconnaissance de ce "sale boulot". Temps partiel imposé, rythmes de travail effrénés, horaires éclatés, non-respect du droit du travail, tels sont les facteurs qui marquent l'expérience des salariés sous-traités de la propreté. Dans ce contexte, malgré l'absence de véritables campagnes de syndicalisation, c'est l'action quotidienne de syndicalistes de terrain qui permet aux syndicats de maintenir un lien avec ce monde du travail profondément précarisé. Fondé sur une enquête comparative et ethnographique, cet ouvrage nous immerge dans le travail quotidien des syndicalistes du secteur de la propreté à Marseille et à Bologne. Ici, face à des travailleurs invisibilisés du fait de leur appartenance de classe, de sexe et de race, les syndicats tendent à reproduire des pratiques syndicales forgées à l'époque de la "société salariale". Pourtant, cette étude montre l'importance de la prise en compte du potentiel émancipateur contenu dans les expériences de vie et de travail des salariés du bas de l'échelle pour l'élaboration de nouvelles stratégies syndicales."