Cleaning / Security

About us

UNI Property Service Global Union brings together approximately 130 national unions around the globe working together in 77 countries to improve the lives of workers who clean and maintain buildings and provide private security services. These national unions have over 2 million members in these two sectors and represent many thousands more. Our ranks include cleaners who keep the floors shining at the world famous Sears Towers in Chicago and who clean some of the worlds largest airports from Schiphol in Amsterdam to LAX in Los Angeles and Galaeo International in Rio de Janeiro.

Our members in private security guard banks and transport cash and other valuables in all parts of the world. UNI Property Services has signed 4 Global Agreements with the largest companies in our industries: G4S with 650,000 workers in 110 countries, ISS with 550,000 workers in 50 countries, Securitas with 280,000 workers in 40 countries and Loomis with 22,000 workers in 17 countries (in transportation of valuables).  Again, these workers are found throughout the globe from Europe to Africa to the Americas and Asia.  The field of private security is growing exponentially as private employers hire their own security services and governments increasingly turn to private providers rather than public employees for specialized ancillary services.  

Our mission is to improve wages, benefits and working conditions for the millions of property service workers around the world by organising workers and building strong unions that can negotiate good collective agreements.  Many of our members work in good jobs and under strong contracts negotiated by established unions, others have been left behind. These workers are denied basic rights that others take for granted, for example, the right to have decent hours of work, days off when sick, paid holidays, overtime pay and much more.  Many of these workers are denied the right to organise free of employer pressure, intimidation and retaliation.  Rights guaranteed by the ILO and the UN are denied to millions of property services workers throughout the world.  

Millions of workers in this industry struggle every day just to get food on the table and to pay their rent.  The right right to a permanent job with benefits, to be paid a "living wage" or even the country's minimum wage is denied to large percentages of these workers, even those many are employed by wealthy multi-national corporations and the largest domestic employers in their country. Cleaning and security services are comprised of large numbers of immigrant workers who have moved to a new country to build a better life but, sadly, many find themselves trapped into a live with little hope of improvement.

Unions representing these workers have come together in UNI Property Services to change these conditions.  As multinational corporations have expanded their reach in the contract cleaning and private security industries, UNI Property Services, through international organising campaigns and Global Agreements that guarantee workers the right to form unions without employer interference, calls on these leading transnational firms to respect workers' rights, wherever the company operates, in order to secure improvements for property services workers.

UNI Property Services is one of the fastest growing sectors in UNI Global Union and embraces building strong unions that have programs to enhance rank-and-file activism and worker mobilizations to bring these workers out of the shadows and into the light where the important work they provide everyday is properly recognized and compensated.  

UNI Regional Staff

Head Office -Nyon, Switzerland

Eddy Stam

Head of Department

Joanna Katsoulas

Senior Organizer

UNI Africa - Johannesburg, South Africa

Keith Jacobs

Campaigns & Organising Director

UNI America - Montevideo, Uruguay

Marvin Largaespada

Regional Director Graphical & Property Services

Alan Sable

Regional Director – Campaigns & Organising

UNI Apro - Kathmandu, Nepal

Rajendra Kumar Acharya

Director TU Development & Coordinator PS

UNI Europa

Natalie Swan

Policy Officer Property Services