School cleaners strike for jobs

School cleaners strike for jobs

By Tony Iltis

HOBART — Most of Tasmania's 300 government schools were closed for a week after cleaning and maintenance staff went on strike on July 7.

The dispute started when the government announced that consultancy firm Corporate Diagnostics would conduct a review with the aim of reducing the government's expenditure on cleaning and maintenance.

Privatisation and contracting out have been favoured options from similar reviews in other states.

On July 1, more than 500 cleaners and maintenance staff demonstrated in Hobart and warned of strike action.

Janet Riley, a former school cleaner from Victoria who was "outsourced", described the devastating effects of contracting out school maintenance there. At her school, eight cleaners were replaced by just two. As a result, toilets and classrooms were in a "putrid" condition.

A representative from the CPSU explained that consultants only give governments the answers they want. ALP state opposition leader Jim Bacon, the Greens' Christine Milne and Bob McMullen from the federal ALP also spoke.

The strike was supported by Tasmanian Parents' and Friends' Associations.

On July 9, striking staff voted to continue their action despite an industrial relations tribunal recommendation that they return to work. The strike ended on July 11 after the government promised to extend the agreement under which the school attendants are employed until September 1998.

From GLW issue 281