Text | OUTSIDE, AUTHOR| Hu Buxi, ed Che Mao Mao
Cleaning mom's siege
North Drift. Cleaning. Mom.
When these familiar words are combined, you may think of a woman with a blurred face holding a cleaning rag, a tired mother with her baby in her arms, or a stranger on a battery cart.
In fact, the combination of the three constitutes a huge group of workers in the city, who are older, less educated, and in the stage of life, going to first-tier cities for their families, silently scrubbing and cleaning unfamiliar places day by day.
Compared with the food delivery workers, couriers, and online car-hailing drivers who have attracted much attention on the Internet, this group of older women is silent and unwatched. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), there are about 75.6 million domestic workers worldwide, 76.2% of whom are women. Only 6% of these cleaners have access to comprehensive social security, and nearly 70% of cleaners have been injured at work. When the platform protection for the delivery worker group is gradually improved, most of the cleaners are still facing no work-related injury insurance or accident insurance, and are rejected by employers.
Carefully wipe the glass (Source: Interviewee)
These ordinary women dissolve into our daily lives like water, they run between neighborhoods and office buildings, but like the invisible people of the city, no one looks at their plight in detail.
01 50-year-old cleaner in Beipiao, working 12 hours, 70% of whom have suffered work-related injuries
After downloading the housekeeping app and filling in the registration information, Liu Fuxiang officially became a cleaner. The whole process took her less than half an hour, and the job barely had any threshold other than the requirement to be under 50 years old.
Comparing the company's service quotation, she silently calculated in her heart that after two hours of daily cleaning, the price was 120 yuan, and she could get 80 yuan. In the morning, I take orders freely, and in the afternoon, I have a part-time nanny job, and I can have at least seven or eight thousand yuan in a month. During the epidemic, even the college students in the village were worried about their work, and Liu Fuxiang was very satisfied with the fact that he could still have such an income with a junior high school degree.
After working for more than a year, Liu Fuxiang found that this hard-earned money was not easy to earn. In order to support her family, she came to Beijing to work for more than ten years, entered the factory, worked in clothing store sales, and did a lot of work, only cleaning made her feel: "Can't work for a long time, people will go crazy after a long time." ”
Since this year, Liu Fuxiang's housekeeping company is not allowed to work part-time, and his income has been reduced by half. She was therefore tied to the job.
At eight o'clock in the morning, she was already riding an electric scooter through the streets and alleys to her employer's house. She generally receives three orders a day, two orders of four to five hours of depth or clearing of the wasteland, interspersed with one order or two hours of daily cleaning, as a dispensing, even if there is no time loss, it will take more than 12 hours, and when she returns to the rented tin house, it is often 90 o'clock in the evening.
A lot of cleaning work requires squatting or bending over for long periods of time
Compared with daily cleaning, the income of deep cleaning is slightly higher, and the requirements are more detailed. From wall mold, kitchen grease, glass limescale and even dust under the bed, it is important to clean it spotlessly.
In order to clean the floor tiles, Liu Fuxiang would squat on the ground for dozens of minutes, and when she got up suddenly, her eyes were dark and she almost fell. Long-term inhalation of dust and dust also made her cough often while working. Liu Fuxiang used to like the big order from the villa area the most, and now he is most afraid of such a big order. Once, she cleaned a house of several hundred square meters by herself, spent six hours, did not eat the middle grain of rice, was so hungry that her chest was pressed against her back, and when she went out, her bones were scattered.
Such heavy physical work, even energetic young people are difficult to handle, Liu Fuxiang gritted his teeth and survived.
In the face of survival, there is no choice. Rural mothers like her, who are forty or fifty years old, are really limited in the jobs they can choose, and their arched backs still carry the children of their hometown.
As long as she thinks of her three children, no matter how tired Liu Fuxiang is, she will give birth to infinite strength, take a new order, and go to another strange home.
The income of the cleaners is calculated by the order, and their work and rest are also governed by the order. Sometimes the employer comes late, and Liu Fuxiang can only be patient and sit in the corridor and wait. Occasionally, a neighbor would pass by and look back at the outsider suspiciously. At this time, Liu Fuxiang will pretend to swipe his mobile phone to block these eyes. The waiting time is not fixed, and the time of delivery of the order is unknown, so Liu Fuxiang is unable to eat regularly. Sometimes, in order to fulfill the noon order, she, like many cleaners, does not even eat lunch.
Serious deep cleaning takes a lot of time (Source: Little Red Book)
Eating irregularly, bending over for a long time, almost every cleaner has an occupational disease. Since she started cleaning, Liu Fuxiang's cervical spondylosis and lumbar spondylosis have often attacked, with ten illnesses and nine pains, and her body is full of strong bone plasters, which is her simple armor.
However, plasters can soothe pain, but they can't stop accidents. On the way to the employer's house, the cleaners may have a car accident because they are in a hurry; When they arrived at the employer's house, the cleaners could also fall and injure themselves when they climbed to clean the lamps and glass.
According to data from the Gig Economy Research Center, 70% of cleaning aunts have been injured at work. Either falling from a height, getting burned, scratched by a sharp object, or being bitten by an employer's pet.
Whether it's an occupational illness or an accident, these are visible injuries, and some injuries are hidden in more hidden corners. Liu Fuxiang once fell on the road, and when she didn't care about bandaging, she rushed to her employer's house, and when she arrived at the door, she found that her knees were full of blood.
02 I cleaned them, but they thought I wasn't clean
While scrubbing the mirror, Zhang Na noticed her reflection and suddenly felt a little strange, was this lifeless person her? She still remembers that ten years ago, she was 42 years old, chic and neat, bold and uninhibited, her husband was addicted to gambling and lost his family business, so she decisively kicked him away and took the train from Yuncheng, Shanxi to Beijing. The train station was crowded, but she wasn't scared at all.
Although I only have a primary school education, I don't even know how to take the subway. But she is sure that as long as she is steadfast, she can always earn a world here. But after ten years of cleaning, she no longer has the cool profit she used to have, except for contacting her employer, sometimes she can't say a word for three days.
3,600 days, day after day of labor, left her with frozen shoulder, lumbar spondylosis, pulmonary nodules, and also carved invisible psychological scars on her.
When the cleaning aunt changed into shoe covers and walked into this strange home, there was an invisible barrier from the surrounding environment. After four or five hours of deep cleaning, silence became the norm. As Liu Fuxiang said: "Some people are depressed in this line of work, because no one speaks, and the employer does not want to meet a cleaning aunt who only likes to talk and does not work." ”
Zhang Na is strong in her bones, and she always strives for the top in everything. When she first came to the housekeeping company, she was afraid that she would not be skilled in business, so she only cautiously chose daily cleaning, a single order of 70 yuan for two hours, and only earned six or seven thousand a month. Later, she invested by herself, spent 2,000 yuan to buy a high-temperature machine, glass wipe, and studied deep cleaning, if she worked more than 12 hours a day a month, she could earn almost 10,000 yuan at the highest time. In the company, she is experienced and conscientious, and the teacher is always willing to send her more orders and send good orders. According to the rules, Zhang Na will also return a red envelope of 30 yuan to the dispatching teacher. When Zhang Na said this, her calm face became vivid because of pride.
Relying on her job as a cleaner, Zhang Na lived a clean life, pulled her eldest pair of children, and earned back her independence and dignity. But many times, when it comes to the employer's home, this dignity can be easily shattered.
"Everyone thinks it's just cleaning, and anyone can do it." In the first 30 minutes of entering the door, the employer would always steal suspicious glances, either for fear of Zhang Na's cheating or for her professional ability. For example, when Zhang Na took out a professional rag to wipe the floor, an employer unceremoniously stopped her and asked her to change to a wet wipe, saying that what she had wiped for others was not clean, and Zhang Na could only wipe it one by one. In the end, Zhang Na worked for half an hour, but the employer thought Zhang Na was slow. People are under the eaves, even if Zhang Na feels aggrieved, she can only take the wipes in the end.
Questioning and picking on cleaning aunts is a norm (Source: Xiaohongshu)
More than the distrust of her employers, she was suffering from occupational discrimination. Once, she knocked on the door of her employer's house, and instead of welcoming her, the employer handed her a set of prepared clothes and asked her to change into them. Zhang Na could only agree, she put on her pants clumsily, her face was hot, and she felt like a big virus in this family.
This kind of discrimination is not unique to Zhang Na. Chen Liyun, a cleaner from Henan, also encountered the same thing. Looking back, she is still a little unwilling: "I am also like them, washing clothes every day." "However, when you become a cleaner, no matter how decently you dress, there are always people who feel that they are not clean.
Cleaning glass is a dangerous job (Source: Internet)
In addition to being often cleaned by her employer, Liu Fuxiang is like being manipulated by her mobile phone, and she will click on the background of the housekeeping company's APP from time to time, for fear of missing the employer's time. Even before going to bed, she was thinking about how to clean up and accumulate repeat customers. Sometimes when she falls asleep in a daze, she dreams that her employer has maliciously reviewed badly, her credit score has dropped, and she can no longer receive orders, so she will wake up immediately in fright.
What does a bad review mean? For Chen Liyun, this may make her service star drop by one star, earning 3 yuan less per order. If she gets up early every month and does 200 orders in the dark, she will earn 600 yuan less, which is equivalent to half a month's living expenses for her children. Therefore, every time Chen Liyun finishes cleaning, she will ask for a good praise with a shy face. Every time she made this request, her face was hot, and she felt like she was a little whispered.
Busy in the kitchen (Source: Interviewee)
And when the dignity of the cleaners is not valued, they become the best targets for the weak to vent their anger. A colleague of Chen Liyun once asked her employer to give her a good review, but she didn't expect the employer to swow evil fire on her, and she scolded: "Fuck you, what does it have to do with me if you don't have a good time, why should I give you good reviews." ”
If the cleaner has a dispute with the employer, the company will deduct the money or even fire the cleaner. But if an employer insults a cleaner, what price does he pay? The answer is no.
"The platform is all for customers, and it is of course important to serve customers well, but we have no guarantee for our work." Chen Liyun said. Even if he was so wronged, in order not to be fined, the cleaner could only calm down and swallow his anger. has been repeatedly hurt by such contempt, and in the long run, the hearts of these cleaners have long been full of holes.
03 Who is responsible for injuries at work?
Zhang Na, 52, is 52 years old after working as a cleaner in Beijing, and she still doesn't know which way the door of the nearest hospital to her opens. Because she did not have medical insurance in Beijing, she survived until the end of the year every time and went back to her hometown hospital to see a doctor. The back pain and arm pain were all relieved by plasters, and when others persuaded her to go to the big hospital in the capital, she would immediately gasp, "Hey, it's a waste of money!" ”
At present, Zhang Na's company no longer recruits aunts over 50 years old, and Zhang Na's body is not as good as before, in the past, she could do two orders of deep cleaning a day, but now the parts on her body are "aging" seriously, and her body is still unbearable after working for five hours in a row. She was more vulnerable to injury than before, but now she has neither workers' compensation nor accident insurance, which often leads to rejection by her employer.
According to a survey report released by the Wuhu Municipal Consumer Protection Committee in Anhui Province, 7 out of 10 employers will give preference to domestic workers covered by work-related injury insurance or other insurance.
Once, the leader of the dispatch group forwarded a news that the cleaning aunt fell from a high-rise building, reminding everyone to pay more attention at work. Liu Fuxiang also took the opportunity to ask the team leader why we were injured and had no insurance, but in the end we didn't get an answer.
Thorough cleaning, testing physical strength (Source: Internet)
It stands to reason that the cleaner's insurance should naturally be paid by the housekeeping company. However, most domestic companies are intermediary and loosely managed. The company did not sign a labor contract relationship with the cleaners, but only helped match the services of the employer and the cleaners, and collected intermediary service fees from them, and the rights, responsibilities and obligations of purchasing work-related injury insurance were also ambiguous and ambiguous, and it was difficult to clarify.
Some formal domestic service companies will purchase accident insurance for domestic workers, but commercial insurance has great limitations, and it is difficult for domestic service workers to obtain full and reasonable compensation.
Chen Liyun also thought about buying work-related injury insurance by herself, but it was not easy for her income to bear this expense. When I don't have any orders, in Beijing, I only have an income of four or five thousand yuan a month, and I am afraid that I will not be able to make ends meet after deducting my daily expenses and spending thousands of yuan on insurance.
Chen Liyun is just a microcosm of the cleaner group, the "2023 China Blue-Collar Group Employment Report" shows that the average income of cleaners is 3,804 yuan, the lowest income among the main blue-collar groups, and they must spend money on more urgent survival needs, such as spending next month's rent, buying rice, flour, grain and oil, and paying their children's tuition.
Moreover, because of the unified collection of social security and five insurances in recent years, work-related injury insurance can no longer be paid separately, even if Chen Liyun makes up her mind and decides to spend thousands of yuan to buy a job injury insurance for herself, she will not be able to do so.
This year, Chen Liyun is 53 years old, and her body functions are gradually deteriorating, in addition to perennial low back pain, her arms will be numb and swollen when she sleeps at night recently. Colleagues around her told her that there might be a problem with her spine. She didn't dare to delay her condition and hurried to the hospital for examination. When she was sitting in the waiting area, she looked at the city people who were swiping their medical insurance cards, and suddenly felt a little sad. "Only at this time did I realize that I was in my 50s, and I had no security at all."
Riding an electric car, continue on the road (Source: Interviewee)
In order to soothe the anxiety in her heart, she pays more and more attention to her health. When I scroll through Douyin, I often look at the knowledge of preventing cerebral infarction.
Compared with flexible employment groups such as food delivery workers and couriers, the cleaner group has its own special features: they are older, have a low level of education, most of them only have a junior high school education, and they often lack awareness of rights protection due to their education level and cognitive limitations.
"The men in the village were injured when they went out to deliver takeaways, and the platform bought insurance for them, and we didn't do anything cleaning." Chen Liyun once compared her work situation with that of other migrant workers in the village, such as being injured in food delivery and paying occupational injury insurance on the platform, but she never thought that she should also have this kind of treatment.
When Chen Liyun worked for a housekeeping company, she didn't sign any paper contracts or any stamped documents, and the reason why she didn't ask for a contract was because, in her opinion, "asking for a contract is a kind of pickiness." "Don't you want to find a job to do, then you have to go according to other people's requirements." For the sake of her livelihood, she chose to compromise.
Due to the lack of formal labor contracts between domestic service workers and companies, the mainstream intermediary employment model has significant legal and protection shortcomings, and it is often difficult for them to obtain due labor protection such as work-related injury insurance when they encounter injuries or damage to their rights and interests at work.
The same is true of Chen Liyun's colleagues, even if they are bitten by their employer's dog, as long as the employer helps pay for the rabies vaccine, they will not pursue it again, and if they encounter injuries at work, they usually choose to go private. It all depends on the conscience of the employer. Obviously, as the number of similar disputes increases, the employer's risk awareness also increases. Once, Chen Liyun took an order for door-to-door glass cleaning services, and was asked at the door whether she had paid work-related injury insurance or accident insurance. After Chen Liyun answered no, her employer refused to let her enter the door, saying that she couldn't afford to pay for the accident.
04 Conclusion
The working environment of cleaners is private, they are often scattered, rarely like takeaways and couriers, often in contact with the public, and there is also a lack of online voices, so the society also lacks attention to cleaners, and their job security problems are difficult to see.
In 2023, the domestic service industry in mainland China has entered a trillion-level market, with more than 1 million enterprises and about 38 million employees.
Most of the cleaner practitioners are rural mothers like Chen Liyun, Liu Fuxiang, and Zhang Na, who have come from remote villages to bustling cities, working hard for their children's tomorrow. Domestic workers allow these ordinary people to rely more flexibly on their own hands to achieve more work and more rewards. It's just that when these mothers try to hold up their children and hope to give them a more secure life, they choose to put themselves in an insecure situation.
*Names have been changed.