Contract cleaner threat an attempt to intimidate workers, union says

Over the past two weeks, Education Facility Attendants have escalated industrial action to include no rubbish removal from classrooms, no cleaning of sinks and floors, and no vacuuming.

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A leaked draft of the secretary's letter, which was anonymously provided to United Voice, said "given your failure to perform your duties, as previously directed, unless you inform me by no later than 4pm 28^th June you will undertake them in your normal work hours on Monday 1^st July, I will engage contractors to do so".

"Our action to close off various areas of the school was appropriate, given the existence of hazards that have been created by you not performing your full range of duties," the letter said.

United Voice branch secretary Jannette Armstrong confirmed a union member received a final version of the letter on Friday.

"The Department has been using these threats of workplace health and safety and disciplinary action to try and coerce EFAs to ceasing their industrial action," Armstrong said.

"If they bring in contractors they are in breach of the job security agreement that is in place, and we'll see them in the (Industrial) Commission."

Ms Armstrong said the engaging of contract cleaners was an enormous waste of money that could instead be put towards giving EFAs the pay rise they were seeking.

"(The state's) already spent an enormous amount of money over the past two weeks to getting extra relief cleaners to come and work around these work bans," Ms Armstrong said.

"All EFAs are asking for is a 2.5 per cent wage increase - it's fair and reasonable. On the wages that they are on it is absolutely affordable.

"To go that one step further and actually engage these contract cleaners shows the government is not really after a swift resolution and doesn't really want to sit down and negotiate."

A Department spokesperson maintained as of Friday afternoon no contract cleaners had been engaged to do the work EFAs had not performed but confirmed a number of areas in certain schools have been forced to be closed off due to safety issues as the result of the work bans.

"Departmental officers are working closely with principals so we can identify and mitigate against workplace health and safety hazards and a range of strategies are available to them to help maintain a safe and healthy environment, including closing off certain areas of schools in a very small number of cases," the spokesperson said.

"We are working hard to ensure safe and health workplaces and learning environments during this time."

The Department said the use of portable toilets, as the potential consequence toilets not being cleaned, had not been deemed necessary.