Radboud University is working on an action plan to improve the working conditions of the cleaners in the Huygens building. The plan has been developed with the assistance of the ombudsperson and will be finalised in the coming weeks.

Dirty toilets, a high workload, and dissatisfied cleaners in the Huygens building. All of this should soon come to an end thanks to a new action plan. A series of measures are aimed at improving working conditions for the cleaners.

In January, over five hundred university employees signed a letter to Radboud Services director Gerben Smit to voice concerns about ‘their’ cleaners. The cleaners had submitted a petition the day before requesting better working conditions.

Serious consideration

The university now shows that it has given the complaints some serious consideration. The ombudsperson has picked up the issue and gone into conversation with thirteen cleaners, four supervisors, and members of the participation councils of Radboud Services and the faculty.

Based on their input, she presented ten ‘solution directions’ to the cleaners last week. According to the university, ‘short-term’ action will be taken based on these. A specific timeline is not mentioned; a spokesperson said that the ideas will be further specified ‘in the weeks following.’

What can the cleaners and Huygens staff expect? ‘Considerations include communication about management, one-on-one conversations, and the content of work meetings,’ said a university spokesperson. ‘In addition, training and team-building sessions will be organized to further develop the communication skills of employees and supervisors.’ She cannot be more specific at this time.

Dirty toilets

Since 2021, the cleaning of the Huygens building has slowly been outsourced to the cleaning organization Asito, which has been responsible for cleaning at other faculties for years. Some cleaners in the FNWI building are still employed by the university, while new employees have contracts with Asito.

Since the reorganisation, cleaners have had to do more work in less time, and they say that quality has become less important. For example, toilets are cleaned less frequently, making them dirtier. The cleaners would then be reprimanded for this. In some places, cleaning reportedly hasn’t been done for weeks.

Translated by Siri Joustra