High life raises wages and pressure
Wall cleaners earn more than other unskilled workers, but life is tiring and risky.
Moving up and down a rope, stretching his arms wide to wipe as large an area as possible, the life of external wall cleaner Shang Qianjin hangs on two cables 14 millimeters in diameter whenever he works high in the air.
The 43-year-old never thought he would enter the headquarters of China Central Television in Beijing’s Chaoyang district, a building he had only seen on TV.
Then, in 2018, he was employed to clean its external walls. Before starting work, he looked the building up and down.
Although he was not supposed to look inside the building while cleaning it, he couldn’t resist taking a peek. “It’s beautiful. I wish my children or I had a chance to work inside,” he said.
Shang and his peers are known as “spidermen”, and cleaning the external walls of skyscrapers is a booming profession. Many such buildings have sprung up since the reform and opening-up policy started more than 40 years ago.
The CCTV headquarters is one of them, while the 632-meter Shanghai Tower in East China is the country’s tallest building.
A recent report by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in Chicago showed that by the end of last year there were 1,733 200meter-plus buildings around the world, and China boasted 56 of the 106 completions globally.
The country is also home to 18 of the 30 highest buildings projected for completion this year.
In April, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the National Development and Reform Commission of China issued a document on the management of urban and architectural features.
The guideline imposed strict regulations on the planning and construction of skyscrapers. As one of the regulations was that no new building should exceed 500 meters, many architects had to reduce the heights of planned skyscrapers.
High-altitude cleaners have to obtain a special operations certificate, which is overseen by the Ministry of Emergency Management.
While they earn more than many other migrant workers, they also shoulder serious mental and physical challenges imposed by the work.
As a result, few young people are willing to undertake the work.
Career change
Shang, from Zhumadian city, Henan province, has been cleaning external walls in Beijing for about 13 years.
Before, he assembled prefabricated buildings in the capital, but an accident in 2007 changed his career path. Shang and several colleagues fell 5 meters when the roof of a building was disturbed by strong winds as they laid sections of tiling.
An inspection later found that the foundations were unable to bear the load, and the site’s technical director hadn’t made a preparatory safety check.
Though there were no fatalities, the workers suffered a range of injuries. However, the incident was not reported, according to Shang, who said he received no compensation at all.
“It was quite scary. My employer had no sense of safety, so I decided to find a new job. I think my current job is much safer than my previous one because we can at least check our protective gear carefully before we start,” he said.
Having completed the practical and theoretical sections of a training course, he was issued with the special operations certificate that allows him to clean high buildings.
He usually works in teams of three to six people. After setting up their equipment on a high point and carefully placing the cables, they check their safety harnesses and start work.
They wear waterproof clothing, nonslip footwear, gloves and safety helmets. A plastic bucket of cleaning agent is tied to a wooden platform, which is attached to cables that can bear about 2 metric tons.
The workers sit on the platform and use wipers to clean as much glass as possible with each swipe.
They check the weather forecast before deciding on the next day’s work as inclement conditions can affect the work significantly.
They cannot work on rainy, windy or snowy days as raindrops and snowflakes make the glass too slippery, while wind makes the platform unstable.
Instability
Shang usually gets up at 5 am. After eating a simple breakfast of Chinese pancakes and soy milk that costs about 6 yuan (90 cents), he spends two hours commuting by bus or subway to reach his workplace by the 8 am start.
In winter, Shang’s working day ends at about 5 pm, but in summer it is extended to 7 pm because the workers need to rest indoors to avoid the high temperatures at noon.
“In summer, the walls or the glass curtains are very hot and the water we rub on them evaporates in seconds. We are often soaked with sweat after working for a while,” Shang said.
“In winter, we need to wear thick, waterproof clothes, but the water droplets are still freezing. The thick clothes slow our working pace. Also, the strong winds in the Beijing winter make the work more difficult because even a little gust can make our platform shake.”
Jiao Kun, also from Zhumadian, has been doing the job since 1997.
The 43-year-old has heard about accidents in the industry, and he was involved in an emergency in 2007 while washing the top section of a building in Pangu Plaza in Chaoyang.
A sudden strong gust lifted Jiao and his workmate so high that they could not reach the wall.
They held onto one another and eventually were able to use suction cups to fix themselves to the glass and stabilize their platform.
Jiao spent months getting accustomed to working in high places, starting on low buildings and gradually working his way up.
He and his colleagues always visit the restroom before they start their tasks, each of which typically takes two to three hours.
If they need to go again they have to lower themselves to the ground by ropes and then climb back up to the platform.
“We need to go up and down, side to side and stretch to clean a wide area,” he said.
“A regular day’s work is always very tiring, so I often fall asleep on the subway on the way home,” he said.
If a client is particularly hard to please, Jiao and his peers will return to the building, check their work and explain any problems to the client’s satisfaction.
The highest building Jiao has cleaned was about 200 meters, but he rarely tackles anything that size now because of safety considerations.
“Once, I wanted to clean the tallest building in Beijing, but the plan got put on hold as I got older and became less fit. Being safe and protecting myself is the most important thing for me and my family.”