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Responsible Procurement Declaration for the Cleaning Industry

On 8th March, 2016 the European Social Partners UNI Europa and EFCI (European Federation of Cleaning Industries) signed a joint declaration in support of UNI Europa Property Services' "Cleaners Charter". The text of the declaration follows below and the signed declaration is available to download. For more information, please contact Anna Harvey: anna.harvey@uniglobalunion.org

"UNI Europa Property Services is committed to promoting responsible contracting policies. To this end, it has produced the “Cleaners Charter” which highlights several key procurement principles.

We, the Social Partners of the European Social Dialogue Committee for Industrial Cleaning, declare our support for the content of this Charter. Representing the European interests of a highly labour-intensive sector, our Committee is dedicated to promoting the “Best Value” principle and indeed it is our belief that the provision of high quality cleaning services is only possible when there is respect for collective agreements and the fulfillment of social security and tax obligations.

We are deeply concerned by the ongoing practice of awarding cleaning contracts on the basis of lowest price. This is an unsustainable practice. It often leads to unfair competition between companies and bad working conditions for the employees of this sector. We believe in promoting a positive image of our industry; one which provides high quality services carried out by motivated personnel.

In particular, this committee takes note of the afore-mentioned “Cleaners Charter” and declares its general support for responsible and quality procurement tendering, the negotiation of and respect for collective agreements, the promotion of daytime cleaning wherever possible and the trade union rights of cleaning staff."