It was heartwarming today - on the day that the UK cleaning industry properly recognises and celebrates its key players - to read that over-18s working in the contract cleaning industry in Ireland are to receive a 60 cents above-minimum-wage hourly pay rise from 1st June. I know this isn't a great deal of money in the big scheme of things and particularly so during the current economic difficulties, but it should make something of a difference for those who so deserve to be earning far more than they do. What impressed me is that the press statement has singled out the contract cleaning sector, which in my view helps validate it and show that people are realising more and more, the crucial role cleaning plays in everyone's wellbeing - along with, of course, our need to retain trained-up and enthusiastic people within the industry and prevent them from being tempted away into higher paid roles elsewhere! Furthermore, the pay increase looks as if it's been determined as a result of a public consultation. There's more on the story further down the page and I'll be looking into how this has come about for a follow up in Cleanzine. 

  

Yes - this morning I'm heading into London to help celebrate more of the cleaning industry's successes at the Kimberly-Clark Professional Golden Service Awards. I've been attending these Awards for some three decades and the excitement still hasn't waned after all that time - for me or apparently for everyone else who's been enjoying them for so many years. I'm looking forward to learning more about the winners and the facilities they're cleaning and discussing some of the problems they've had to overcome to achieve such excellence! 

  

As members of the general public, we naturally expect our environment to be clean, but rarely do most people think about the work that goes into making it that way - unless of course something's clearly not clean and hygienic, which leads to a complaint. I wonder if those complaining ever stop to think that someone's hard toil is behind the fact that what they're complaining about isn't generally a problem? Or if they thank the cleaners who rush to rectify whatever's gone wrong?