The Dirty Work of Neoliberalism: Cleaners in the Global Economy

In this collection of essays, an international group of scholars investigate the global building cleaning industry to reveal the extent of neoliberalism's impact on cleaners. This book provides the first intensive study focusing on building cleaners and their global experiences Brings together an international group of scholars and experts to investigate different national contexts and examples Draws out important commonalities and highlights significant differences in these experiences Examines topics including erosion of cleaners' industrial citizenship rights, the impact of outsourcing upon their working conditions, economic security, and the intensification of their work and its negative effects on physical health Considers how cleaners are mobilizing to resist and respond to the restructuring of their work. Content: Chapter 1 Introduction: Geographies of Neoliberalism (pages 11–15): Andrew Herod and Luis L M AguiarChapter 2 Janitors and Sweatshop Citizenship in Canada (pages 16–36): Luis L M AguiarChapter 3 Maria's Burden: Contract Cleaning and the Crisis of Social Reproduction in Post?Apartheid South Africa (pages 37–59): Andries Bezuidenhout and Khayaat FakierChapter 4 Restructuring the Architecture of State Regulation in the Australian and Aotearoa/New Zealand Cleaning Industries and the Growth of Precarious Employment (pages 60–80): Shaun Ryan and Andrew HerodChapter 5 Manufacturing Modernity: Cleaning, Dirt, and Neoliberalism in Chile (pages 81–101): Patricia Tomic, Ricardo Trumper and Rodrigo Hidalgo DattwylerChapter 6 Introduction: Ethnographies of the Cleaning Body (pages 102–105): Andrew Herod and Luis L M AguiarChapter 7 The Cleaners You Aren't Meant to See: Order, Hygiene and Everyday Politics in a Bangkok Shopping Mall (pages 106–128): Alyson BrodyChapter 8 Cleaning Up After Globalization: An Ergonomic Analysis of Work Activity of Hotel Cleaners (pages 129–149): Ana Maria Seifert and Karen MessingChapter 9 Work Design and the Labouring Body: Examining the Impacts of Work Organization on Danish Cleaners' Health (pages 150–171): Karen Sogaard, Anne Katrine Blangsted, Andrew Herod and Lotte FinsenChapter 10 Introduction: Cleaners' Agency (pages 172–176): Andrew Herod and Luis L M AguiarChapter 11 Cleaners' Organizing in Britain from the 1970s: A Personal Account (pages 177–194): Sheila RowbothamChapter 12 The Privatization of Health Care Cleaning Services in Southwestern British Columbia, Canada: Union Responses to Unprecedented Government Actions (pages 195–213): Marcy CohenChapter 13 Justice for Janitors: Scales of Organizing and Representing Workers (pages 214–234): Lydia Savage