IN the midst of heavy workload, ‘Sweeper/Cleaners’ in Region Four said they are still determined to hold on but are calling on the Ministry of Education to provide better tools for them to do their job and pay them on time.

When the Guyana Chronicle spoke to some of the Ministry of Education employees recently, those employed in the public service system and who are on the school’s payroll claimed satisfaction with their job, but they want some things to change. Sweeper/Cleaners employed on contract complained of having to wait months before they are paid a small salary although many of them are single-parents.

One of the staff-cleaners at a school just outside Georgetown on the East Bank Demerara said her salary is reasonable, given that she has been on the job over a decade now but her dissatisfaction includes the lack of respirators available for them to work, especially when they must clean toilets and sweep in a dusty environment. Their health is put at risk within those very schools even as children sometimes attend school while they have a contagious illness.

“(When) diahorreah go around, we don’t have the diahorreah but if anybody have it and they go in the toilet and you clean now, you catch it. We have gloves but we don’t have respirators. If we get respirators it’s better. We need lil more things to help with the work,” the woman said.

The fact that she has only one other colleague at the school makes it harder on each of them, especially when one is unable to attend work and the other is left to clean both floors at the school for those days. “At least we need most things to work with and we need more people, two people can’t clean a big school like this. This is a big school and all over we gat to clean from 3:00 pm… What I am saying we need a worker more to assist. If I sick, she alone work. Now she can’t wuk she wuk and me wuk, nor me cyan wuk she wuk and me wuk,” the cleaner explained to the Guyana Chronicle.

THOROUGHLY CLEANED
The schools must be cleaned thoroughly and almost all of them are two floors. Cleaners are responsible for sweeping and wiping the buildings daily, wiping benches and desks, cleaning toilets at various times during school hours, changing curtains and cleaning even the compounds.

“Every day yuh gah sweep out upstairs, downstairs, from that end to that end. Yuh gatto wipe the downstairs everyday and two times a week yuh wipe the upstairs. Then yuh gatto clean windows and so on because remember it’s a school right and children deh over. We gat toilet fuh clean, you gatto clean upstairs, yuh gah clean downstairs, yuh gatto clean right away round this whole place,” the woman said.

This sweeper/cleaner said she wishes too that government would review the working hours of sweeper/ cleaners, who report at schools for 9:00 hours or 10:00 hours while their main cleaning is done until after 15:00 hours.

“We gatto come in and sit down here till three o’clock, and you get tired when it’s 3 o’clock. So if you can come in like 1 o’clock and so on it’s okay. The salary would cover fuh the time that we work,” she stated. Her colleague said she too is comfortable with the salary of about $61,000, which would increase from year to year. She has been working as a cleaner at the school 16 years now.

ON CONTRACT
Meanwhile, at a secondary school on the East Coast Demerara, one cleaner is on the school’s ‘payroll’ while the other three are on contract. The cleaner employed permanently said she enjoys a fairly good salary and receives her payment on time but she feels it to hard for her colleagues who work equally as hard as she but receive a delayed salary of just over $30,000. “Some cleaners don’t get their money every month, sometimes three (to) four months dem ain’t get pay. Then the money is thirty-something thousand dollars a month. That is one standard money. So we need the next three to be on the payroll so they could get money every month and a fixed salary-something better,” that cleaner said.

She said even though she is a permanent employee at the school, while teachers enjoy a leave allowance and such vacation time, she has never once in ten years received leave passage nor vacation leave. One of the contract cleaners said she waits months to receive her $37,000 monthly salary and $27,000 for months which have holidays.

BADGE OF SHAME
Only late last month the Guyana Public Service Union made a special appeal to government to look into the plight of sweeper/cleaners. GPSU head, Patrick Yarde and other senior officials sat alongside the sweeper/cleaners, a number of women from several administrative regions, namely Regions Three, Four, Five, and 10.
The women told members of the media that they work beyond the four and six hours stipulated time, mainly as a result of the school hours, which sees them cleaning the public schools classrooms, toilets and corridors beyond the time of duty. The women, most of whom are single mothers, noted that the matter was brought to the fore under the previous People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government. They said that in December 2013, the Cabinet at the time recognised the need for them to be paid standard salaries.

Vanessa Simon of Region Five, has been on the job for some nine years to date and while she started off on her first salary being $15,000, her present salary is $37,000. She said that she works from 0800hrs daily and returns home as late as 16:00hrs on most days. Maryan Fordyce, another sweeper/cleaner, has been on the job some 16 years to date and her salary has moved over the years from $15,000 initially to $24,000 to $37,000.

The woman was upset that several current government officials stood in solidarity with the women while in the Opposition.

“The present government went on the picket line with us for this same thing,” she said of the matter. Fordyce said she is not entitled to any leave, noting that maternity leave is not an option for her and colleagues.

VERY EMOTIONAL
Yarde said that the matter is one which sees him becoming emotional. “All we are asking is for it to be regularised”, he said of the various salary amounts the women receive. He said that he has spoken directly with President David Granger on the matter and the Head of State has indicated that the Minister of Finance would address the issue. Yarde said that within another two weeks, the union and the sweeper/cleaners would decide on the way forward. The GPSU said that a Cabinet decision was made on the issue in December 2013.

The union is calling for the mainly female employees to enjoy conditions of service as all other full-time workers of the public service, specifically to earn at least the minimum wage of the public service. In addition, annual vacations leave, as well as vacation allowances, were placed on the cards for the sweeper/cleaners.

In December 2013, the Cabinet of the previous government had supported the itemised matters as highlighted by the Minister of Education at the time. The government at the time supported the proposal that the wages of the sweeper/cleaners be set in accordance with the Minimum Wages Order and be made timely, and also that the women employed in all regions as well as supplementary provisions sought, be paid retroactively. Last year at the GPSU Labour Day rally, the union called for the sweeper/cleaners to be recognised, noting that they work extremely hard to ensure proper sanitary conditions within schools across the country.