In the play “The Presidents”, a cleaning specialist describes her everyday work in the low-wage sector. What is expressed on stage in a crude and sometimes funny way has an initial background.
In fact, the work of cleaning specialists is heavily stigmatized, says sociologist Lena Schürmann from the Humboldt University in Berlin. Cleaning specialists usually work early in the morning or late in the evening, i.e. in secret, and if they work during the day, they become virtually invisible when they put on their work coats.
“It happened to me that I was cleaning a men’s toilet and someone stood at the urinal next door,” says Schürmann, who once worked in a cleaning company for four weeks.
“Instead of walking two meters further or using the toilet with doors. This is an incredible humiliation and degradation.” In addition to the discrimination that women in the cleaning industry experienced at work, there were many other problems, such as poverty, no security, no social participation.
That’s why the sociologist demands that cleaning work no longer be allowed to remain invisible. A different social policy would be important: “Cleaning work that is necessary for society as a whole must be better compensated.” Minimum wages would have to be increased.
#Sociologist #Lena #Schürmann #precarious #work
