Canberra cleaners breakfast

Date: 15 June 2005

UK Parl't cleaners protest

Canberra breakfast commemorates savage police attack on immigrant cleaners campaigning for workplace respect.

ACT LHMU Cleaners Union members will hold a breakfast meeting at 7.30 am today ( June 15) with the Acting Chief Minister, Ted Quinlan and the ACT House Speaker, Wayne Berry, tomorrow morning to discuss the successful ACT Code of Cleaning Practice.

The breakfast commemorates the 15th anniversary of International Cleaners Day, which commemorates the successful strike in 1990 by mainly immigrant cleaners in Los Angeles, USA.

Striking cleaners held a peaceful protest against the firm that employed them when they were savagely beaten by police. The incident provoked a public outcry in the U.S. and abroad.

The Code of Cleaning Practice has been used by union workers to end the shonky practices of some cleaning contractors who not only do not pay their workers the legal minimum but often pay cash-in-hand to avoid tax.

Support for the Code, first adopted two years ago, is spreading through not just the ACT but is being used as a model across the globe for decent workplace practices.

The Acting Chief Minister, Ted Quinlan, has recently announced plans to centralise the ACT Government's procurement policy, including the prequalification of contract cleaning firms in order to obtain government work.

The Code will be part of the way in which companies can demonstrate that they can meet their obligations under the ACT Government's Ethical Suppliers Principle.

The ACT House of Assembly Speaker, Wayne Berry, is pushing this Code as a model for the UK Parliament.

After lobbying from the LHMU Cleaners Union, he has written to the Speaker of the House of Commons to support the union cleaners who are today protesting over the poor working conditions they are forced to work under by their contract cleaner.

More info: Lyndal Ryan, ACT LHMU Cleaners Union, 61 201 202 or 0411 643 982

For further information

Contact:	Andrew Casey
Union:	Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union
Phone:	8204 7206
Fax:	92821 4480
Email:	andrewc@lhmu.org.au
WWW:	http://www.lhmu.org.au/

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