Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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EFCI outlines cleaning industry's urgent needs in Coronavirus crisis
While European institutions are unanimously calling for solidarity and collaborating to develop an EU-level response to the common challenge, EFCI, the voice of the European cleaning and facility services industry, is calling on decision-makers at EU and national level to provide the sector with the necessary tools to continue developing its crucial role throughout the crisis and to ensure the continuity of its companies for the duration of the outbreak as well as after it ends.
On 18th March, the Association published a first statement to address the urgent need for national and European authorities to:
- ensure sufficient supply of Personal Protective Equipment as well as hydroalcoholic gels, disinfectants and cleaning agents involved in high risk interventions
- equalise sanitisation, cleaning and hygiene operations to sanitary activities when it comes to guaranteeing workers' safety and maximum efficiency;
- ensure the free movement of cleaning companies' personnel and vehicles within and across national borders, to enable cleaning companies to perform their duties in sanitisation.
Furthermore, on 27th March EFCI addressed decision-makers in a second statement asking them to recognise cleaning as essential services and by this enable: (i) the provision PPEs for cleaning agents; (ii) cleaning agents' and companies access to confined areas and cross-border movement as well as (iii) access to daycare and schools for cleaning agents' children during lockdowns.
EFCI is also demanding to ensure the continuity of cleaning companies' activities and preserve employment in the cleaning sector affected by offices, leisure and schools' temporary closure. In particular, addressing public procurers, EFCI asks them to adopt the necessary measures to either prevent suspensions or terminations of contracts with cleaning services suppliers, or assume the labour costs for the duration of their suspension.
The Association is also launching a pan-European social media action to give wider visibility to the role cleaning agents and companies are playing as well as to voice the specific needs and concerns of the industry in the context of the current crisis. In particular, EFCI will engage with its members in calling European and national decision-makers to praise the essential role of the sector and its agents and to preserve employment in the industrial cleaning sector, badly hit by the temporary closure of public and private facilities.
2nd April 2020