Canberra cleaners’ strike

 (Left: Parliament House cleaners and their Golden Toilet Brush Award for Treasurer Joe Hockey )

(Contributed)

The strike by cleaners in Canberra at Parliament House on International Cleaners Day, 15 June celebrates 25 years of struggle by outsourced/privatised service sector workers.  

It began with cleaners in the Justice for Janitors campaign in Los Angeles in 1990 being beaten by police during a demonstration.

Cleaners in Australia took this struggle to a new level during the Clean Start campaign from 2007 to 2010. The strike by cleaners on 15 June 2015 in Canberra is symptomatic of a rising tide of
struggle by millions of workers thrown into precarious work in the capital city centres of imperialism.

What we are witnessing is reminiscent of so-called unskilled manufacturing workers organising in the 1930s, made famous by the Flint sit down strikes by automotive workers in the USA.

No matter what imperialism throws at workers, they find the way to unite and organise for social justice in the long march to independence and socialism.

See also: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-15/parliament-house-cleaners-on-strike-in-canberra/6545436