Cleaners key to rebound of commercial real estate
Executives, workers and shoppers are slowly returning to office towers and malls. The cubicles, board rooms, stores and food courts of these major commercial properties have been near empty for weeks.
Some owners have been juggling skipped rents and offering rent deferral to tenants unable to make full payments.
Now, as traffic returns after the pandemic shutdown, there will also be intense scrutiny over how these owners handle round-theclock cleaning of elevator call buttons, door handles and stairwell railings, as well as whether they have robust disinfection procedures in case there’s an outbreak at their site.
“In our view, there’s a real intersection between (cleaners) and the viability of these building owners,” said Tom Galivan of SEIU Local 2, a union that represents many building janitors across Canada.
This week, several cleaners and janitors gathered in front of 401 West Georgia, a downtown office building owned by Toronto-based Oxford Properties, which invests in and manages real estate for OMERS, one of Canada’s largest pension funds.
They work for and are paid by Bee-Clean Building Maintenance, a large, national janitorial services provider, which Oxford contracts.
Oxford said in a statement it has been focused on the cleaning that will be needed as workers head back to the office.
“Our updated building cleaning protocols have incorporated local and global health guidelines, feedback from health experts, and the responses of over 1,200 offices workers across the globe. They have been designed to keep people safe, and importantly, make them feel safe when they return to the office.”
Loida Aubay was at the building ahead of her shift. She’s been cleaning at 401 West Georgia for six years, but is now worried about how she’ll stay safe and keep up with new work expectations such as deep cleaning after there is a case of infection. As well, she’ll have new duties during the day when the spaces will be filled with people instead of cleaning only after hours.
She also held down a day job cleaning a family home, and another job at a recreational club to make ends meet. She supports the union’s Justice for Janitors campaign that asks property owners and cleaning contractors to increase hourly wages by $2, offer better job security, and provide masks and gloves.
Her brother in Alberta, who works in a factory, experienced COVID -19 symptoms. So the risks and trade-offs feel front of mind, even as she’s relieved that he has recovered.
“I do the work because it’s my job,” said Aubay. “It makes it possible for other people to work.”
While most cleaners in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa are unionized, the vast majority in Vancouver are not, and they don’t have health benefits and pensions. They face “incredible downward pressures” on wages that are near the legal minimum as contractors aim to present the most competitive bids to building owners, said Galivan.
The cleaners at several Vancouver buildings owned by Oxford are an exception in that they joined last fall and are currently bargaining with Bee-Clean, who didn’t return a request for comment from Postmedia.
“If you can get a better return by investing responsibly, that’s obviously a positive step,” said Harpinder Sandhu, a union-appointed board trustee on two of the largest B.C. pension funds who has a background in property appraisal.
“The other part is to identify what the risk is in any particular investment, and reduce it,” said Sandhu.
Factors such as location or amenities, or perhaps the mix of tenants or sales per square foot, are more common factors to assess when projecting the financial return for a real estate investment.
But Sandhu feels that as priorities shift, programs that bolster cleaners and janitors, such as incentives to retain them and other initiatives like including healthcare expertise for office design or procuring equipment, could also serve as indicators that help investors judge the value of property.