Explainer

Comment

Economics

4 May 2023

5 min read

Cleaning up cleaning: the problem with split shift work

Unhealthy and unnecessary working practices impact unseen cleaners. It doesn’t have to be like that argues Ryan Gilfeather.

Ryan Gilfeather

Ryan Gilfeather explores social issues through the lens of philosophy, theology, and history. He is a Research Associate at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work.

A cleaner sweeps between large white interior walls of a concourse.

Photo by Verne Ho on Unsplash.

In offices across the country cleaners are often kept out of sight whilst the other workers do their jobs. Cleaners are instead brought in for two short shifts, the first starting as early as 1, 2 or 3 am, and a second beginning around 8pm. Most of us overlook this pattern of work, taking for granted that it is necessary.

However, dig a little deeper, and its insidious nature emerges. We begin to see how it is mostly unnecessary and harms the flourishing of cleaners in their health, family, and dignity. It treats small financial gains as worth more than human lives.

For many industries, cleaning does not need to happen in the early mornings and late nights. Consider the downsides of daytime cleaning. The cleaner would need to manoeuvre around colleagues at their desks and in meeting rooms, but they would still clean to a high standard in a similar timeframe. Their job does not need to be done during unsociable hours. There is a minor cost to the company in the office. The office worker might need to briefly step away from their desk for a moment as it is cleaned, they may be momentarily distracted by the sound of a hoover, and a meeting room may be out of action for a very short time. The only costs would be a tiny loss in efficiency and profits to the companies who hire these cleaners. Since the negative consequences of daytime cleaning, instead of split shifts at unsociable hours, are so marginal, the current working patterns are clearly unnecessary.

No choice, compelled to say yes

Importantly, these cleaners often do not have any other choice. I meet many of these cleaners in my work at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work. None of them choose to work split shifts at unsociable hours. For many, employment with better conditions is simply not available. About 27 per cent are migrants and often they lack English-speaking skills, preventing them from getting other kinds of jobs. 59 per cent have attained an education below the equivalent of C or 4 at GCSE, so it is hard for them to find other work. 17 per cent are ethnic minorities, who face greater barriers accessing other kinds of work. They have to work, they often have no better choices than cleaning, and in this industry they cannot say no to these working patterns. In this way, they are compelled to say yes to these kinds of split shifts.

Split shifts deadly consequences

This working pattern damages health. A recent medical study demonstrates that working night shifts, a similar pattern to split shifts, more than doubles the odds of developing breast cancer Another study shows that shift-work disturbs worker’s circadian rhythms. This in turn leads to problems with cancer, heart health, mental health, and more. Split shifts have deadly consequences for cleaner’s health.

Eroding family time

Split shifts also steal cleaner’s time from their families. When cleaners earn below the real living wage, their family relationships suffer; 48 per cent say that their wage level has negatively affected their relationship with their children. For many, poverty wages force cleaners to take on two or more jobs. As Angus Ritchie, an Anglican priest, academic, and campaigner for marginalised communities puts it, poverty wages force workers to:

‘to choose between spending enough time with their children and having enough money to provide for them.’

These cleaners, who are often on poverty wages too, may only be able to briefly see their children between the end of school and the beginning of the nightshift, but will miss out on caring for them in the morning and enjoying extended periods of quality time. Therefore, when employers unnecessarily force these working hours upon cleaners, it also harms their relationships with their families.

Denying dignity

These patterns of work also render cleaners invisible. In an Equality and Human Rights Commission report from 2014, cleaners spoke about how they were made to feel ‘invisible’ and like the ‘lowest of the low.’ It is hardly surprising that they have this experience when the patterns of work we force upon them are designed to literally stop office workers from seeing them. Cleaners do crucial work which enables the broader enterprise of offices all around the country to function, yet they remain hidden away, their existence and contribution unseen and unacknowledged. Needless to say, these unnecessary split shifts take away their dignity.

Why value humanity

Campaigning to oppose this practice are Christians. Here’s why. The Bible and its tradition teaches that all human beings share the same inextinguishable value. As part of the story of creation says,

“God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.”

Over the centuries Christians have interpreted this passage as affirming the same fundamental value of every person as one made in the image of God. Every person in some way dimly mirrors God’s inestimable goodness and love, and is, therefore, of greater value than all the riches of the world. To treat someone as less valuable than us or material goods is to deny the reality of how God created the world.

Split shifts at unsociable hours, however, represents the opposite belief. As argued above, these patterns of working are largely unnecessary, and only lead to small financial gains for the companies who hire the cleaners through tiny increases in efficiency. However, these small riches are treated as worth more than the flourishing of lives which are of inestimable value because they are made in the image of God. Fractional gains in money are placed above their ongoing health, their family relationships, and their dignity through recognition. These meagre financial rewards are more treasured than the flourishing of lives made in the image of God.

The working patterns are bad for cleaners. Not just because they damage health, but more fundamentally, because they deny the reality of God’s desire for creation. Enforcing split-shifts in pursuit of financial gain values small amounts of money above the flourishing of human beings, the infinitely valuable image of God, in their health, family, and dignity.

Christians are beginning to oppose this practice. For example, in 2017, three Christian organisations (Centre for Theology and Community, Church Mission Society, and the church, St Andrew by the Wardrobe) launched Clean for Good. This ethical cleaning company treats cleaners fairly; they pay the Real Living Wage and give holiday leave, sick pay, training and guaranteed working hours. Crucially, they also don’t force cleaners into working anti-social hours. They offer cleaners working conditions and hours which enable them to flourish in their health, family, and dignity, because they truly believe that these workers are infinitely valuable, being made in the image of God.

Article

Comment

Development

Justice

Music

17 June 2025

5 min read

Millions of people are still cold, hungry and naked – will you be there?

The call to justice that echoes from Trafalgar Square to primary schools

Pete Moorey

Pete Moorey is a campaigner for Christian Aid.

A school choir sings in an ornate abbey setting

Twyford School Choir sings in Westminster Abbey.

Dean & Chapter of Westminster.

I’m getting close to my 50th birthday, so I’m prone to nostalgia. My mind wanders back forty years to my primary school days in the early 1980s in a village in Sussex.

Once or twice a week, we’d have school assembly. This included singing hymns. Not something that a shy seven-year-old would usually enjoy. But, in fact, we belted out a series of classics with gusto, accompanied by an almost proficient teacher on an almost tuned piano.

To Be A Pilgrim with its lyrics about fighting giants. All Things Bright And Beautiful and those purple headed mountains. And then our favourite When I Needed A Neighbour with the opportunity to scream out the words “I was cold, I was NAKED!” at top volume, cheekily looking at your classmates as you asked, “Were you there?”

The thing about those hymns was that the lyrics stuck. Not just now, decades on, but even back then. And so when a teacher in assembly started to talk to the school about the famine in Ethiopia or the hurricane in the Caribbean, you began to think “Is that my neighbour?” And when your church encouraged you to deliver envelopes door to door to raise money for Christian Aid Week, you asked yourself “Was I there?”

Of course that was the intention of those songs. The story of When I Needed A Neighbour is bound up with the history of social justice movements in the UK and in particular the organisation I work for, Christian Aid.

Christian Aid was founded in 1945 by the British and Irish churches, who felt convicted to do something to tackle the refugee crisis and poverty sweeping across Europe following the Second World War.

By the late 1950s, it was running Christian Aid Week - a big charity appeal to tackle global poverty long before Live Aid or Comic Relief. And as Christian Aid reached its twentieth anniversary in 1965, this annual fundraiser was a big deal.

Such a big deal in fact, it decided to launch the fundraiser in Trafalgar Square by running a Beat & Folk Festival. You can find an old newsreel of the occasion on YouTube. Nelson’s Column is surrounded by thousands of young people listening to the Christian equivalent of Peter, Paul and Mary and getting fired up about global injustice.

For the occasion, the then Christian Aid area secretary for London, Brian Frost, decided that a new song needed to be written. And so he approached the modern hymn writer of the moment, Sydney Carter. Two years early, Sydney had written his most famous hymn Lord of the Dance.

Brian was of that era when Christians were at the heart of the anti-apartheid movement and committed to ecumenical action. And so combining this passion for social justice and the folk song mastery of Carter - When I Needed A Neighbour was born.

As Christian Aid marks its 80th anniversary, we revisited this classic. When you watch the newsreel of an early performance in 1965, you quickly realise its folk credentials. It’s not just the fact that it’s being sung by marvellously hirsute men, it’s also there in the folk melody, guitar accompaniment and sung refrains.

A year later Sydney Carter would record an EP that included Lord of the Dance which featured the folk royalty of Martin Carthy on guitar. For folk aficionados, you’ll know him as one of the English folk music greats - married to the incredible Norma Watterson and father to Eliza Carthy. For those less familiar with the genre, he was also an important inspiration for Paul Simon and Bob Dylan - yes, him off A Complete Unknown.

There’s no evidence that Martin appeared on When I Needed A Neighbour but I think his involvement a year later confirms that the song sits firmly in the Sixties folk music boom. To young ears, it would have been hip. To older ears, perhaps scandalous.

How do you reimagine such a classic as When I Needed a Neighbour, 60 years on from its birth - and now 80 years into Christian Aid’s history? Especially at a time when we witness our global neighbours in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, the DRC, and more wondering if - in the face of conflict and humanitarian disaster - anyone is there.

We started with the lyrics. In 1965, Sydney Carter captured something of the simplicity of the issue at hand. People are cold, hungry and in need of shelter. And there’s something that each and every one of us can do, in our common humanity, no matter who we are, whatever our creed, ethnicity or background.

Within a few years of the song being written however, Christian Aid had a lightbulb moment - it wasn’t enough for us to respond to emergencies around the world. Not enough also to work with communities on long term economic development. No, if are to live out God’s call to act justly and to love mercy, then we needed to be part of movements tackling the unjust structures and systems that result in poverty and inequality around the world.

And so in returning to When I Needed A Neighbour and working with hymn writer Ally Barrett, we have now written new words that act as a call to each and every one of us to be a neighbour by speaking out for justice. This is something that Christian Aid has done throughout our history, calling for action to drop the debt in the 1990s or as one of the first development organisations campaigning for climate justice in the 2000s.

This week we marked our 80th anniversary at Westminster Abbey by recommitting ourselves to God’s call for justice. And this included the Kingdom Choir (who famously sang at Harry and Megan’s wedding) and the Sacred Choir from Twyford Church of England school in London performing a gospel-tinged version of When I Needed A Neighbour.

My hope is that, 60 years on, the song will still carry resonance. In an age when conflicts rage, the climate crisis runs riot and inequality is rife, isn’t it time to answer When I Needed A Neighbour’s call again?

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