Spotlight On Window Cleaners In The Far East

Daredevils: Workers clean the windows of a skyscraper on Jl. M.H. Thamrin in Central Jakarta. The salaries paid to window cleaners do not match their courage: Some claim they are paid as little as Rp 1 million (US$113) a month and are covered only by the state’s Jamsostek insurance program.

Salary not as big as their guts: Being trapped in a gondola cleaning high-rise windows is scary for those working as window cleaners. Projecting fear onto other activities is the only way they are able to face the moment. “[When being trapped] I just chatted with my colleague so that we did not panic,” said window cleaner, Kosim, recalling an incident in 2009 when he was trapped in a gondola at about the 10th floor while cleaning a skyscraper in Kuningan business district, South Jakarta. The gondola was stuck up there for about an hour because a technical problem halted the lift system, triggering an automatic shutdown of the entire system. “I was very nervous, even after I contacted the building technical engineer through my walkie-talkie. Anything could happen in that situation,” he said.

The man, who had been working as a window cleaner for four years, said he was aware of the risks when he took the job. “As a teenager, I loved to climb, so I was excited to take the job. Of course the risks are there, but I still wanted to do it,” he said, adding that the scariest moments were when the wind was strong. With excessive pollution, many tall buildings in Jakarta count on brave people such as Kosim to maintain its luster. A window cleaner’s salary, however, is apparently not as great as his courage. Ahmad Yani, another window cleaner, said that he was paid Rp 1 million (US$113) a month and was protected by state workers’ insurance Jamsostek. “It is small compared to the risks. Many of my relatives pushed me to find a safer job with a better salary. Sometimes I think about finding another job just to find a new environment, but not because I worry about my safety,” he said.

“I enjoy the scenery from up above, plus the breeze sometimes makes me sleepy,” Ahmad added. Darwoto, a supervisor at a building maintenance company, PT Virya Surya Jana, said that a gondola worker should obtain an operational license, called an SIO (Surat Ijin Operasi). “It is like a drivers license. [Window cleaners] have to join a three-day training program before they receive their license,” he said. The license, issued by the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry and valid for five years, is given after the three-day training program, which includes instruction on knowledge of safety procedures and operating the gondola.

Safety procedures include wearing a helmet, full body harness and belt. This, however, does not guarantee one’s safety. A gondola with three workers inside broke away last Wednesday and fell upon the 29th floor of the Batavia Tower building in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, killing one worker. Maman Hermansyah, chairman of the association of experts on safety working at high-rise buildings (Asosiasi Ahli Keselamatan Kerja di Bangunan Tinggi ), said that Indonesia was the second after China with the highest rate of work accidents at tall buildings. “In 2006, five people fell and died while working at heights every day in Indonesia. In 2007, the figure rose to seven people every day,” he told the The Jakarta Post recently.

Maman, who is also the president of the Southeast Asia Climbing Federation, stressed the importance of regulating safety standards for working at height. “Currently, the safety law only mentions one method in working at height, using rope that is, while there are many other methods, including using gondola,” he said. Maman said that all workers working at heights, which include electricity engineers and window cleaners, should be trained and obtain a license. According to Maman the association had issued certificates for about 600 workers working after they had been trained by institutions affiliated with the association, mostly those who work in the telecommunications industry. 

Professionals out to clean your spaces: Armed with the right equipment and expertise, housekeeping professionals are in demand this Diwali. From providing specific services such as floor cleaning, window cleaning, glass cleaning, carpet cleaning, upholstery cleaning, rug cleaning, appliances cleaning, chandelier cleaning and so on, the experts also offer deep cleaning that includes overall cleaning of the house.
Gambhir Mundinkeri, who has been running Clean Fix Housekeeping for the past nine years, said in the past two-three years, people have opened up to the concept of hiring professionals for housekeeping. “Earlier, we used to serve only corporate and individual offices during festivals but now 70 per cent of our clientele are households,” said Mundinkeri, who serves over 150 clients during the festive season. He added that more than bungalows, they get maximum number of orders from flat owners.
Mundinkeri has got a team of around 15 persons. They are further divided into three groups. Each team that works on one site includes four workers and one supervisor. To work on a house of 1,500 sq ft, it takes the team around 10 hours. The firm starts getting orders a month prior to Diwali. Executive vice president and company secretary of HDFC Bank, Sanjay Dongre finds the concept of hiring professional cleaners convenient and economical. “They are well-equipped and we don't have to worry about supplying cleaning material to them,” said Dongre.
For Samarth Services, the period of Dussehra and Diwali is the busiest of the year. On an average, the firm’s team finishes working on four-five houses in one day, which sometimes differs depending on the availability of manpower. “In the past three years, I have observed a lot of changes in this field. The outlook of people has changed tremendously and they are looking for professional services for each and every requirement. Thus I see a lot of growth potential for this market in the coming years,” said Santosh Vishwakarma, Samarth Services.
Spic N Span Services is a two-and-a-half year-old firm that specialises in residential cleaning. “On an average, we finish cleaning three apartments in a day. We work in three teams; each team comprises four persons, including a team leader. The concept of Diwali cleaning has undergone a change and people prefer getting it done through professionals than their maids,” said Mayur Shah, proprietor, Spic N Span.
Agreeing with Shah is Vishwakarma, who says that earlier the whole idea about cleaning was limited to using phenyl and acid. “Now they know there is a different chemical for different purposes and one cannot replace the other. We train our team members thoroughly on the mechanism, equipment and products to be used while cleaning glasses, carpets, toilets, sofas, floors and so on,” he added. The charges for professional Diwali cleaning depend on various factors such as area, type of cleaning, condition of the flat and so on. On an average, for deep cleaning of a 2BHK furnished flat spread over an area of around 1,000 sq ft, the cost will be between Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000 (around $50).

After yesterdays blog: Shanghai Window Washers Killed In Accidental Fall, here are a couple of news stories that have appeared arising from the fatal falls..

'For work they risk their lives' - Oblivious to the heavy rain, a man in a leather jacket stood just beyond the police cordon, gazing intently. Before him lay the bodies of two window cleaners who fell to their deaths yesterday in Changning District. Occasionally, he spoke quietly to onlookers who were speculating about what had happened. "For their work they risked their lives," sighed the man, surnamed Zhao, who should know as he has worked in the same dangerous trade. Zhao, a passer-by, said he had been a high-rise window cleaner for six years but quit. "There are two things you need for that job; one is a license and the other is guts."

More than 1,000 window cleaners - a trade known as a SpiderMan - work on high-rises across the city, risking their lives on a daily basis, separated from death only by their securing ropes. And increasingly, they are threatened by a lack of supervision on equipment checks and poor safety awareness, warned a local exterior wall cleaning industry committee. An official, surnamed Wu, said many cleaning service companies don't check equipment regularly, meaning a SpiderMan may have to rely on aged or damaged ropes and tools.

For though the industry committee requires companies to check equipment, the absence of a supervising facility means regulations are often ignored, said Wu. "The life of a cleaner depends on the rope that holds him," said Wu, "But there are no laws forcing companies to ensure equipment is safe." Moreover, some workers do not even hold operation licenses, which need to be renewed annually after exams. Zhao said the job is usually taken by migrant workers who shift jobs frequently, some working for several companies at one time. "To save money, some companies only get one or two licenses but hire many workers," he explained.

To make matters worse, fierce competition among small cleaning companies is driving them to cut costs as much as possible, impacting on equipment checks and training, said Wu. And when accidents happen, some cleaners are not covered by insurance, as their employers haven't bought any, he added. Zhao, from Jiangsu Province, said in his time as a window cleaner he saw several injuries among colleagues who fell but were saved by safety locks.

And despite the dangers they face, high-rise window cleaners are poorly rewarded.  "Often, I didn't know where my next meal was coming from," said Zhao, who said workers receive about 150 yuan to 200 yuan for a day's work. "However, sometimes we waited for one month between jobs." Zhao said many men from his hometown come to Shanghai to work in the trade. Taking a final look at the bodies, covered by white sheets, Zhao walked away from the crowd as the rain got heavier. "Too bad for them," he said as he left.

Two window cleaners in fatal fall linked to each other by safety harness? The two window cleaners who plunged to their deaths from the 22nd storey of the the Pacific Business Center on Yan'an Road yesterday could have been linked to each other by a safety harness.  Zha Minjie of Shanghai Daily reports:

According to witnesses, one worker began to fall after his support rope snapped, taking with him a colleague he was linked to by a safety rope. "If it's true, then it was against all the rules, as workers should not be linked together," said a former window cleaner, surnamed Zhao, who worked in the business for six years.

Zhao said each two-man team should be equipped with three ropes, with both workers hooking onto the middle one by a device called a latching lock, in addition to having their own safety ropes. "The lock will hold the workers even if one rope breaks," said Zhao. "They would just hang in the air instead of crashing to the ground."

Is Cleaning a Window Worth Your Life?

The online "building magazine" provides this Sundays viewing with some unbelievable examples of window cleaners with no respect for health & safety or people around them. Although the examples on the website deals mainly with construction working errors, many of the examples are of bad window cleaning practice.

The new Spiderman movie... will probably not, on balance, look much like this. Peter Whitbread captures this example of extreme window cleaning. That man is clearly on the lookout for trouble.

Fact: window cleaners will fall through skylight windows however gingerly they tread across the glass. Hornagold & Hills's director Henry Lamb spotted these "two herberts" cleaning the basement skylights outside his office window in Waterhouse Square, London.

Toes like talons: The only way is down when you've reach the heady heights of a safety blunder of this calibre. Thanks to Gordon Paterson who sent in these snaps. He wrote: "This is a window cleaner we witnessed climbing out a window six stories from the ground in the centre of Edinburgh. There was no evidence of him clipping on and no signs of any harness. The ground to roof ridge height in a similar building we were surveying was in the region of 23 meters!"

Window cleaner shopped: Never has shopping for spectacles been so potentially dangerous. Spotted by John Williams in Prague.

From ledge to hedge: This blunder is more impressive when you consider the window has been shut behind him. The the man rubbing down his windows in Muswell Hill, London was spotted by Matt Cayton.

Paul Shilling of Cluttons sent this photo of “window cleaners opposite our office”. But hang on, this looks more like a cleverly planned heist to us. Criminal mastermind No 1 is already halfway across the ledge. Criminal mastermind No 2 is taking a bit longer to make his escape, presumably because of the bulging swag bag he’s about to heave out of the window.

Don't worry, that bollard will break my fall. More daredevil window cleaning antics. Location: Cheadle Hume, Cheshire.

On the precipice: A cleaner on the Talgarth Road gets caught on the wrong side of a sash window. Picture taken in West London by George Long.

Extreme window cleaning: This chap seems to want to live on the edge or perhaps he hasn't realised he's just a few inches from disaster. Thanks to Richard Burgess for this photo. He says this "window cleaner on the first floor window ledge about 15ft off the ground in Jermyn Street London, opposite our office. "He obviously has no regard of where he is or an issue with heights."

Multi-tasking? The man on the van seems more interested in what's on the other end of his phone. David Durrant sent this picture to Building from the Algarve in Portugal.

Cleaning... calling... falling? This window cleaner must suffer from the opposite of vertigo. Invertigo? Spotted by Mark Eardley on a trip to Bristol. "Our intrepid window cleaner has put aside all safety protection such as long pole cleaners, safety harnesses or any other PPE to a clean this third storey window. The PPE would have not been of much use should he have slipped and become impaled on the spiked railings approximately 10m below!"

Cleaning with soul: The grip on a dirty sneaker is all that's keeping this window cleaner from the pavement below.

Get a grip! Taking your sandals off so you can get a firm grip on the top edge of the stepladder with your toes doesn't really count as proper safety procedure, we suspect. Having lunch in Dubai, Cor Benjamin spotted this worker cleaning bird excrement from the lamp posts. "His ladder wasn't quite high enough," comments Cor – well, apparently it is, if you count the very top edge of the stepladder and (of course) leave your sandals at the bottom.

This London window cleaner spotted working several storeys up without any safety equipment is obviously no vertigo sufferer. A Burgess, who took this snap, was less sanguine about such foolhardy working practices: “Cleaning windows earlier this week on fourth-floor building in Mayfair with no harness, PPE – nothing!” he remarked in horror.

Definitely not a safe bet: As this chap is clearly a gambling man, it's handy that there's a betting shop just below. Then when he's finished gambling with his life, he can go and have a little flutter on the horses for light relief. Thanks to QS Adam Ball for spotting this window cleaner working above central Manchester's busy Portland Road with, as he points out, “no harness or head protection” - and clearly no sense, either.

Standing in the gutter is handy – if hardly safe – for cleaning that particular storey, but how's he going to do the next one up? David Johnston was most alarmed to glimpse this windowcleaner through the window of his central-London hotel. "He spent about 20 minutes outside on the narrow ledge oblivious to any risk; no doubt he will be back in a couple of months to clean them again – I just hope I am not there to witness it should he fall."

Kevin Sansbury was admiring the Flatiron building in New York when he spotted this chap appreciating the view. But surely it’s just as impressive from inside the building?

Crouching tiger, hidden drop: Actually not such a hidden drop – a blatantly obvious three-storey drop – and not a tiger at all, but a rather reckless window cleaner. This window cleaner was spotted three storeys up at a building in central London, on the corner of Coleman Street and Basinghall Avenue.


Klingon spotted in the West End: Sorry, we meant 'cling-on'. Oh, and did we mention the spiky wrought-iron railings three storeys beneath, and the rain? Since this chap apparently requires all four limbs to cling to the window frame, we are rather wondering with what appendage he is planning to clean the glass. Perhaps he could lick it clean?

Firm fined over employee fall, UK

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is warning bosses they must do everything in their power to protect workers from falls when working at height.It comes after Darlington magistrates' court fined building firm Bussey and Armstrong £15,000 and ordered it to pay costs of £3,193 for a breach of section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 when a member of staff suffered serious injuries.On March 29th 2007 an employee fell into a stairwell and 5.4 metres to a concrete ground floor when he lost his balance carrying out joinery work.The worker was using a saw horse to reach some roof joists and was working next to the stairwell, which was unguarded, and he suffered crushed vertebrae and a fractured pelvis.HSE inspector Jonathan Wills said the case illustrated why risk assessments are a necessity for work which is to take place at height."All companies must assess the risks from work that they are undertaking at height, ensuring that the work is planned properly and appropriate measures are taken so that workers are not exposed to risk of falling," he stated.Tasks which may involve a risk of falling from height include cleaning gutters, roof work and window cleaning, according to the HSE.

Cleaning Staff: Clean Forgotten?

Finally some fine journalistic reporting but rather lengthy notes from Safety & Health Practioner Magazine:

The people who clean our workplaces make our working lives easier and more pleasant but, laments Dr Chris Ide, precious little attention is paid to the many work-related hazards and risks they face. For a long time, cleaners tended to be typecast as Mrs Mop, whose catchphrase “Can I do you now, sir?’ Cleaning is generally regarded as a task carried out by women. The Labour Force Survey (LFS) tells us that, of the 537,000 employed in cleaning, almost 84 per cent are female, and about 70 per cent are part-time. Men sometimes undertake cleaning duties as well, but tend to be employed as window and street-cleaners, or refuse collectors. According to the LFS, the 61,000 involved in these three tasks are exclusively male and almost entirely full-time employees, although there is a substantial proportion of self-employment among window cleaners. Alternatively, or additionally, cleaning materials may be used to improve the appearance of the surface or object by making it smell more pleasant, disinfecting it, or giving it a shine. The combination of the environment or location that needs to be cleaned, and the chemicals, tools and techniques used to carry this out can present to the cleaning workers involved a wide variety of hazards, which need to be assessed by those who deploy the staff. The cleaners themselves must also receive appropriate training to ensure they understand the nature of these hazards, and the steps they need to take to protect themselves. The plethora of mops, brushes and brooms used by many cleaners can place heavy static loads on their bones and joints, and force them to adopt awkward postures. This, in turn, may give rise to low-back and neck pain and other musculoskeletal disorders, such as work-related upper limb disorders, affecting the shoulders, elbows and wrists, particularly if the task involves lengthy periods of frequent repetitive movements and/or hard gripping, squeezing, or wringing. During the six years or so during which data was collected, the annual incidence of contact dermatitis was 12.9 per 100,000 workers. As well as being more common in young women, it also appeared to hit more men as they got older. About 13 per cent were due to soaps and cleaning agents, and 11 per cent to wet work. A lot of window cleaners seem to be abandoning ladders for water-filled poles, which enable the worker to remain with their feet on the ground. Others use cherry-pickers, aerial ladder platforms, and scissor lifts to help them meet the requirements of the Working at Height Regulations. However, technological sophistication comes at a price – the need for proper training, and maintenance of the equipment. This applies just as much to traditional equipment – ladders should not have broken rungs, for example. Appropriate, comfortable clothing is also a ‘must’, particularly for those who are working outdoors in cold and/or wet weather. Lone-working is also an issue. As previously mentioned, cleaners often go about their work while other employees are at home, i.e. during the night, or early mornings. Thus they often have to work with little or no heating, ventilation, or air conditioning, which is usually turned down or off outside ‘normal’ working hours. In addition, cleaners often work in very small groups or even alone, and so are more vulnerable to harassment. Since cleaning is regarded as a rather lowly job, which is relatively poorly paid, it often recruits those with low levels of educational attainment. Immigrants also form a large proportion of the cleaning community. Consequently, employers must give particular thought to organising appropriate training, covering such things as safe working techniques. There is the danger that such workers can lull themselves into a false sense of security, since they are working with supplies that may resemble those used in their own homes, only to be put into harm’s way because larger quantities have to be used, or the materials are at “industrial-strength”.