"Facebook office cleaner who led protests at London site fears for his job", 12 September 2021

Facebook’s facilities management firm has demanded the removal of a union activist leading a campaign against “impossible workloads” imposed on exhausted cleaners at the US tech giant’s London offices.

Emails seen by the Observer show JLL @ Facebook, which manages the social media firm’s London sites, asked Churchill Group, which employs the cleaners, to remove the workers’ elected union rep, Guillermo Camacho, from Facebook’s offices after he helped organise protests against a doubling of cleaning duties in July...

“The number of floors we have to clean has gone up from five to 12 [at Facebook’s offices on Brock Street]. But they haven’t brought in more staff. It’s impossible – I was having to come before my shift and leave late to get it done,” said Camacho. “It’s making us all really stressed and sick. That’s why we had to protest.”...

The building’s 22 to 24 cleaners, who earn £10.85 an hour and are represented by the Cleaners and Allied Independent Workers Union (CAIWU), claim they were ordered to clean a washroom, with five toilet cubicles and a shower, in one minute and 30 seconds...

...the email from JLL @ Facebook requests that “Camacho... be removed from the [Facebook] account” for an alleged “lack of proactiveness in managing the team and maintaining a high cleaning standard”. It was sent on the same day he led protests outside the offices in July.

Churchill Group said it couldn’t comment on individual cases but insisted “any employee relations matters are unrelated to any protest activity or union involvement”. The company said the additional floor space had been added to the account but it had not resulted in increased workload because the cleaners’ tasks had been realigned. “Each task has been timed and undertaken by our own management to ensure they are realistic and achievable; this has been backed up by time-and-motion reviews specifically designed to each site,”...

The union raised the cleaners’ concerns with Facebook...But email exchanges...show Facebook’s managers repeatedly referring the union back to Churchill, claiming “we are not the correct organisation to correspond”...

...Camacho, who is currently suspended after the removal request, faces a crunch meeting. Minutes from his last meeting with Churchill reveal he will be dismissed if another role cannot be found for him “specifically due to a third-party removal request”...

Facebook said...it had ensured all of its contract workers continued to be paid throughout the pandemic. “As a Facebook supplier, JLL must adhere to our strict vendor standards, including ensuring that anyone contracted is paid the London living wage as minimum,” said a Facebook spokesperson.

JLL said: “We pride ourselves on our reputation for integrity and ethics and we hold all our vendors to the same standard in our vendor code of conduct. The health and safety of our people, including those employed by our vendors, is of utmost importance.”...