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Thanks for noticing us

12th of August 2024 Article by Lotte Printz

A campaign has been launched in Denmark to encourage passengers to show respect for cleaning staff in the Copenhagen Metro. ECJ’s Lotte Printz reports.

At work in the capital recently, I was rather impressed with the cleaning procedures on the Metro. Only minutes after I had entered a carriage where someone had clearly had an accident with a coffee to go, a cleaning operative jumped on board and efficiently cleaned the place before getting off a few stations later.

I admit I might be influenced by this job for ECJ and moved to a different seat, lifted my feet for her to be able to clean under the seats and smiled apologetic when she apologised to me for touching my feet slightly with her mop. I was not the only one on the train, but I was the only one ‘interacting’ with her, perhaps even noticing her. To the other passengers she seemed to be invisible despite the fact that cleaning the floors was not at all an invisible job - in this casemaking the journey more pleasant.

“Cleaning operatives should not feel invisible. We have to remember to acknowledge them and not to take their jobs for granted,” says Danielle Hansen speaking to the industry magazine Rent i Danmark after Danske Service, the trade association that she chairs, has launched a campaign jointly with the trade union 3F.

“Thanks for noticing those of us who clean properly” (in translation) campaign posters picturing cleaners say in and around the Metro – thanking those who smile at and acknowledge the presence of the cleaners. Hoping to inspire more to do so.

This is a campaign launched on distressing grounds, though. Not only do one fifth of 3F members feel lonely at work, 14 per cent of them have been subjected to threats and harassment according to a survey carried out by 3F in 2022, as opposed to an average of two per cent in the country as a whole.

And just over a year ago, such an incident occurred in the Copenhagen Metro – and went viral. A woman filmed how a male cleaning operative was being verbally insulted by an aggressive man while quietly cleaning at a station. The aggressor also kicked his bucket and generally acted threateningly towards the cleaner.

A Danish Instagrammer with 1.2 million followers shared the video and condemnation of this dreadful behaviour poured out on social media, as well as public sympathy towards the cleaner.
“No one in this country should be harassed for just doing their jobs,” Danish Games of Thrones and Aquaman actor Pilou Asbæk wrote after having been assured that the video wasn’t staged.
Lasse Andersen, the general manager of the company the cleaner worked for, was appalled that any human being could behave like this, but also stressed that, fortunately, this wasn’t an everyday occurrence.

Even so, a year on, the incident has triggered this campaign and given increased attention to how cleaning operatives are being treated and looked upon. One can only hope that aggressive behaviour or even violence towards cleaning operatives will cease. However, judging from my experience on the Metro, visibility doesn’t seem to travel fast!