By: Hannah Fraser, News Editor (writer and interviewer), and Ashima Shukla, Staff Writer (interviewer and translator)
Since 2020, Contract Worker Justice (CWJ) @SFU has been leading the push for better working conditions at the university.
At the heart of the coalition’s rallies, events, and research is a demand that SFU directly employ its cleaning staff, rather than outsourcing them to BEST Service Pros. CWJ argues that the current system leaves workers trapped in “low pay, weak benefits, a lack of job security, and exclusion from the SFU community.”
That fight for change took a turn on July 28, when cleaning worker Kulbir Kaila died during her shift at the Burnaby campus, leaving the community devastated.
According to The Tyee, Kaila had already been struggling with leg and back pain and had to take on larger areas to clean as part of her daily work over the last two years.
Many cleaning workers at SFU face the same reality — most are older than 50, some “have limited mobility and manage elbow, back, and leg pain,” and walk “up to 40,000 steps each shift, pushing equipment across campus on wheeled carts.”
SFU told The Tyee that Kaila’s passing “had nothing to do with the working environment.”
However, all seven of Kaila’s co-workers that the publication interviewed said the workload, working conditions, and pre-existing health conditions “contributed to her death.”
The Peak interviewed SDU+ to further investigate the concerns raised by The Tyee. Beyond organizing social justice events on campus, SDU+ said they had spoken with workers about their concerns.
The toll on cleaning staff
“According to the workers we’ve spoken with, Kaila’s death is directly linked to her working conditions,” said SDU+. “On the day of her death, she was assigned five areas to clean,” specifying that “a reasonable workload is one to two areas.” Her cause of death has not been made public.
Her case reflects wider concerns: for one, workers allegedly face verbal abuse and harassment. Multiple cleaning workers have been “on (often unpaid) leave due to physical injuries and mental stress, leading to hospitalization,” said SDU+.
According to BC’s Employment Standard Act, workers should have a minimum of five days of paid sick leave. However, “if a union’s collective agreement meets or exceeds the requirements of the Employment Standards Act,” then “the collective agreement applies” instead. SDU+ did not specify how much paid or unpaid leave the workers were given.
SDU+ also alleged the workers do not have access to the collective agreement of their union, CUPE 3338. The Peak reached out to CUPE 3338 to verify this claim, but they did not directly respond. WorkSafeBC is currently investigating individual claims.
The Peak also spoke with two cleaning workers who were close to Kaila: Noorpreet and Ravneet. Their names have been changed to protect their identities. Noorpreet described how, with inflation and having to support family, she feels obligated to keep working despite harassment from management.
“We feel very helpless. And we suffer a lot,” echoed Ravneet.
The Tyee also noted that workers have “insufficient cleaning equipment to properly do their jobs.” SDU+ alleged that BEST “made repetitive attempts to keep workers quiet” about their concerns, including supervisors, team leads, and assistant managers surveilling them during shifts through photos and videos. Ravneet said that even during breaks, workers were being watched and recorded.
SDU+ said recordings are “later used to justify wage theft,” with BEST claiming workers failed to do their jobs correctly. Workers are allegedly “docked pay for being one minute late or having the door closed on them to prevent them from punching in.” BC’s Employment Standards Act “prohibits an employer from withholding wages for any reason,” other than “deductions required by law, such as income tax, CPP, and EI.” The act also prohibits “an employee to cover any business costs.”
Ravneet said Kaila “was always scared that someone might see her.”
“She (Kaila) wouldn’t even sit for two minutes to drink water — she was always afraid. She did her work properly. She was a hardworking woman.”
— Ravneet, cleaning worker
Chris Moore, CEO of BEST, expressed the company’s “deepest condolences” and told The Peak, “The well-being of our team is paramount, and this tragedy compels us to be better.” He said that BEST is “fully cooperating with ongoing investigations.”
Moore refuted the allegations that the company operates “in a culture of fear,” stating, “our managers and executive team are here and always available to our team, without any repercussions or fear of termination.
“I want to reiterate that BEST takes the safety and security of all our team members as our number one priority,” he said. “We have listened to the concerns of our team members, and we commit ourselves to listening and responding.”
Moore stated that, “effective immediately,” BEST is “reviewing safety gear” and “protocols with a view to enhancing these with team safety and security in mind; reviewing workloads and schedules; reinforcing safety training, supervision, and hazard monitoring; and recasting clear, confidential channels for raising safety and well-being concerns.” He added that BEST will continue to work with “employee representatives, the union, and CWJ to engage in dialogue around enhancing safety and workplace culture.”
Without a safety net
The workers’ union did not adequately support the workers, according to SDU+. They said that until Kaila’s death, “CUPE 3338 made no effort to listen to workers’ demands.” CUPE Local 3338 is a “non-profit union organization” representing “nearly 1,200 members in six bargaining units” across SFU.
“Even after having meetings with Shaneza Bacchus (CUPE 3338 president), there was no improvement in working conditions,” said SDU+. The union, they added, had “no interest in fighting for working-class rights.” Bacchus allegedly “intentionally avoided speaking to workers and rarely had meetings,” making excuses such as “‘being on vacation’ and language barriers.”
Since the prioritization of “bargaining for higher salaries” in 2023, SDU+ said CUPE has not brought up worker concerns to BEST.
In The Tyee article, Bacchus said workers “were expected to do ‘surface level’ cleans,” but a language barrier with the workers — many of whom whose first language is not English — prevented that from being successfully communicated. SDU+ reported that management never told workers they were expected to do “surface-level” cleaning.
CUPE told The Peak that they are “actively working to address the concerns raised by members.” The union said they “have been raising the issue of contracted out cleaning (and food services) for several years.”
“We firmly believe that working conditions, equity concerns, and safety issues would improve significantly if SFU directly employed these workers.” CUPE acknowledged that “the loss of Kulbir Kaila is felt deeply in our community.”
The cost of contracting out
The Peak also interviewed Derek Sahota, campaign research assistant at CWJ and member representative at the Teaching Support Staff Union. “By contracting out, SFU both forces a race to the bottom for contractors, and also builds a buffer between them and the workers’ reality that means change is so hard to occur,” he said. SFU contracts out “to distance themselves from daily decisions that hurt workers and save money,” he added.
SFU stated that “maintaining safe and healthy learning and working environments is of paramount importance to the university. We are deeply saddened by this tragic passing. Our thoughts are with her family, friends and colleagues during this difficult time.”
They added that “any questions about conditions for cleaning workers should be directed to their employer, BEST.”
“Cleaning is hard, demanding work that involves dangerous chemicals, and tens of thousands of steps per day, lifting, bending, no matter the temperature,” Sahota explained.
“We know cleaners were being assigned more area to clean as SFU tried to cut costs. We know SFU had a $6.5 million surplus last year, more than enough to keep all the cleaners they laid off.”
He also said SFU “would have had no way of knowing” within 24 hours that Kaila’s death “wasn’t their fault,” but this story was spread anyhow. SFU also allegedly claimed the workers “were always paired up,” but Sahota said “anyone who works on campus knows that wasn’t true.”
Paths forward
Sahota said SFU president Joy Johnson had “ghosted us on [worker] meetings when she came to power.
“To put health first, these cleaners need to be part of the community and the president needs to actually step out of Strand Hall and directly hear from the workers and their union.” — Derek Sahota, campaign research assistant at Contract Worker Justice
Moving forward, Sahota said that “SFU needs to retract their statements, apologize to the whole community — including the workers they exclude from SFU employment — and take proactive steps to make the jobs better in coordination with their union.”
SDU+ said “the only solution is removal of the existing management, establishing democracy within the union, and forcing BEST to provide safe working conditions and reasonable workload to the workers.”
“Speaking up against your boss is always hard, and in order to speak up, workers need to know both that they’re protected, but more importantly, that there’s actually some hope that things will get better,” said Sahota.
“Every worker should return home after their shift.”
