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Labour
Exploitation

“If I Could Change Anything About My Work…” Participatory Research With Cleaners In The UK

January 2021

This report is the first of three working papers exploring the experiences and drivers of labour abuse and exploitation in three understudied low-paid sectors of the economy: cleaning, hospitality and the app-based courier sector. It provides unique evidence of labour abuses and risks faced by workers in cleaning, including pay violations and dangerous working conditions, lack of access to social security such as sick pay, and experiences of sexual harassment. It also introduces FLEX’s use of a new participatory methodology, which involves workers at every stage of the research process, from design to data collection and analysis.