Cleaners forgotten border workers
A managed-isolation cleaner says she’s afraid to join the gym, limits her trips to the supermarket and worries all the time about passing Covid-19 onto others.
She and her colleagues were the forgotten border workers — overlooked and underpaid for the work they were doing to keep the country safe from Covid-19, she said.
Her job had changed massively since Covid-19 but her pay had not changed at all.
And unlike the job before her hotel took on managed isolation, the stresses followed her home.
She has two showers a day and washes her uniform every night — to avoid it sitting around in the washing basket. She keeps two weeks of food in the house in case she ever has to self-isolate.
“It has had an impact on my whole life, it’s changed my routines and the way I go about things and how I interact with people. I want to start going to the gym but I’m really afraid of bringing the virus outside of the gym and into the community,” she said.
At work, there were rigorous PPE and hygiene requirements and she was paranoid about cleaning well enough to keep the next guests safe, she said.
If a guest tested positive, cleaners had to stay in the room until every surface was cleaned, often missing breaks.
But despite the risk and stress she still earned the same as before, just over $19 an hour, a fraction over the minimum wage.
Unite union’s national hotel organiser Shanna Reeder said some managed-isolation hotels had paid their workers more since Covid-19 but they were in the minority.
In a statement, the Ministry of Business Employment and Innovation, which oversees managed isolation, said it was thankful for all those who worked at the border, including hotel cleaners. It regularly talked to managed-isolation facilities about paying a living wage to their employees wherever possible.
The Prime Minister says managed-isolation cleaners need better recognition for the work they do. Jacinda Ardern said she did not know contract details, but the mindset about the work they did needed to change.