Background to the Research

• This chapter is based on data collected in a working-class housing estate in West Belfast, and is referred to by the pseudonym Newbury. In Newbury, formal employment has always been a scarce resource and demand has always exceeded supply.

Research Approach

• Between January and July 1989, a survey of one in four households in Newbury was carried out by the author. The homes were selected randomly from the NIHE Register for Newbury. The refusal rare was approximately 10%. In each household, the householder and their spouse (if any) were interviewed. This generated a sample of 118 males and 128 females living in 150 households. The sample included 89 married couples.

Main Findings

Employment Status and Informal Work

• In only 27% of the households was the male employed in the formal economy; 19% were retired, 17% were unable to work for health reasons, 1% were in prison as a result of paramilitary activities and 36% were unemployed and in receipt of Income Support.
• The data indicated a concentration of formal work in some homes and unemployment in others. Of the 24 males in formal employment, 42% had wives who also worked in the formal economy. 33% of the males who qualified for Invalidity Benefit and 18% of the males who received a Retirement Pension also had wives in formal employment. Only 6% of unemployed males had a spouse who worked in the formal economy.

Unemployment and Informal Wage Labourers

• Informal wage labourers are people who are employed informally or casually by others who operate in the formal economy. The remainder of this summary focuses on one specific group of informal wage labourers; 16 women who work informally as contract cleaners in Belfast. Five of the women interviewed were contacted through a Community School in the area, whilst the remaining 11 were interviewed during the survey referred to above.
• The 16 women interviewed were aged between 25 and 61 and all married with dependents. The spouses of the women were all unemployed and all qualified for welfare assistance.
• The women worked in some of the best known shops and business concerns operating in Belfast and none of them were directly employed by the owners of the premises in which they worked. Rather, they were all employed by sub-contractors who specialise in cleaning retail and business premises.
• All the woman interviewed worked on average between 10 and 15 hours per week; the typical rota was 4-5 evenings each week, for 2-3 hours from about 6.00 pm.
• The women who worked in large shops had to work later on Thursday nights between 9.00 and 9.30 PM and worked until around midnight. They were paid no extra for this disruption in their work routine. The women also complained that at peak periods during the year (e.g. Christmas) their workload intensified due to late night shopping and office parties; yet again they often received no extra payment to compensate for this.
• Since all but one of the cleaners worked in the evenings, these hours were very conducive to combining the traditional housewife role with work. Only where there were young children in the household was the husband's participation noticeable and this involved putting children to bed.

Wage Rates and Motivations to Work Informally

• The women interviewed were paid wages far below the recognised minimum. With one exception, all the women in the sample earned approximately 53% of the average formal wage for cleaners in Belfast (£2.80 per hour).
• On average the women spend around 20% of their weekly wages on transport costs.
• The main motivations for working in the industry was remuneration; most of the wage labourers simply could not manage on their benefits.
• Their wages were rarely spent on luxuries but were vital to providing basic elements for the whole family.

Working Conditions

• The interviewees rarely had contact with employees and/or other cleaners in the premises they cleaned. Some of the women were confined to one building while others cleaned two or more smaller buildings. The women were generally allocated specific areas to clean while more heavier cleaning such as toilet areas were usually shared on a rota basis. Their main duties included cleaning, polishing and dusting.
• The women either worked individually or as part of a team, depending on the size of the premises in which they were employed and were subject to varying degrees of supervision.
• Supervisors were not a uniform group but came from varying backgrounds. Seven of the sample stated their supervisor was a man, none of whom engaged in any direct cleaning work, but were described as company officials who handed out the wages and inspected work.
• The female supervisors had often been previously employed as contract cleaners and had gained promotion.
• The scarcity of cleaning materials proved a constant source of friction between the cleaners and supervisors; this meant that some women could do not do their jobs properly and often had to bear the brunt of office employees' complaints if they employees happened to be working overtime. Other cleaners stated that when complaints were made to their supervisor, the onus was placed back on their shoulders.

Consequences of Informal Recruitment

• None of the 16 women were entitled to any form of employment protection or benefits. Thus if one woman was off sick or had to deal with some family crisis, she did not receive any payment for time off.
• Subcontracting firms are involved in a constant effort to fulfil contracts and make profits and this resulted in a continuous intensification of the labour process. If employees took time off work this could put the implementation of the contract into jeopardy. However, the women interviewed explained that when a close colleague had to take time off work, her chain of social contacts within the organisation joined together and distributed her workload between them.
• A further consequence of recruitment on the basis of informal contacts is that it made this form of exploitative work less alienating. While all 16 women stressed that they were working primarily for money, 11 of the sample stressed the close companionship of their workmates as an added incentive.
• The informal recruitment process also resulted in no standardised wage structure existing for informal workers in this industry. Rather, new cleaners were paid according to the pay of the person responsible for informally recruiting them. All of the 16 cleaners had been recruited by contacts already employed by cleaning firms.
• Most of the women interviewed knew very little about their employing company. Twelve of the 16 cleaners had no idea who they worked for, three women knew the name of the company only and the remaining respondent had actually met her employer. Usually the supervisor was the only company employee the women knew apart from their immediate work group.

Conclusions

• Subcontracting is a process used by formal enterprises in an attempt to reduce labour costs and provides a visible illustration of the fusion of formal and informal economic activity and since the employees operate outside government regulations, they do not enjoy the protection of employment and labour legislation that is extended to even the very low paid workers in the formal sector.
• The situation is enhanced by welfare benefits legislation which tends to discriminate against the long-term unemployed. Because of their husband's employment status, the cleaners in this study were deterred from entering formal employment and as a result, fall easy prey to companies seeking low paid, casual workers.