letters and views Editor’s Note: We recently received a letter from one of the magazine’s most passionate fans … our Publisher Matt Gallinger. A Cleaning Management Institute (CMI) customer recently asked Matt to gather his thoughts about governments’ — local, state and federal — role in the cleaning industry and where he sees opportunities for both sides. T There has never been a time in history when so much attention has been focused on public health and its relationship to the built environment. People are demanding greener and cleaner schools, hospi-tals and public spaces. However, levels of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), pan-demic threats and outbreaks of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in schools, cruise ships and other community-associated establishments are rising dramat-ically. Our local, state and federal governments have also never been more vocal about the need for our society to take a green-er, more long-term view of our everyday practices and behaviors and how these actions impact human and environmental health — now and in the future. In fact, we applaud state-level legislation mandating the use of “green” products in educational facilities. We have seen a major shift in municipal management prac-tices in cities across the country, such as Chicago and Portland, Oregon, where green, sustainable roofs as well as green spaces are being designed into new building projects and more and more sustainable products are being included in the specs of new construction. And we now have legislation in Congress and the Senate to screen all incoming hospital patients for MRSA — a method for reducing HAIs and associated mortality rates that has been suc-cessful in several European countries. But there is a piece missing in this puzzle that we in the clean-ing industry are compassionate toward, but our elected officials seem to overlook: The cleaning technicians. These are the people who actually do the cleaning in com-mercial and public buildings. At this time, these workers arguably have a more direct impact on improving public health than virtually any other profes-sion in our economy. Soil and contaminants on surfaces, including carpets, bath-room surfaces, door handles, patient bedrails or school desks, are a major source of communicable diseases and a major con-tributor to chronic ailments like asthma. Removing soil and contaminants from the indoor environment is the cleaning technicianʼs primary responsibility. These individuals makeup the workforce at the front lines of our battle for a cleaner, greener and healthier indoor environment and yet, as a profession, the cleaning industry is still marginalized and indentified as a career path on the bottom rung of society. The cleaning industry and society as a whole needs to work on changing that perception and giving cleaning technicians the recognition, respect and compensation they deserve for the incredibly important work they accomplish each day. Our leaders in local, state and federal governments have begun to recognize the need to control the types of toxins being introduced into our public buildings, especially schools. The next step is to recognize the importance of our cleaning technicians and their direct impact on public health. We need funding and programs for training and certification of cleaning technicians to ensure they are armed to effectively and efficiently keep our indoor — and outdoor — spaces and air quality healthy. We need local, state and federal entities to begin demanding trained workers, sustainable products and sustainable practices in bids for cleaning and maintenance services. We need hospital infection control groups to recognize and leverage the importance of their cleaning staff and to give them direction, training and access to the areas of the hospital that pose risks to patients and staff. Simple and effective cleaning can dramatically decrease rates of HAIs. And we need educational facilities to view their cleaning budg-ets and staffs as investments in the health of their students, fac-ulty and assets, and not a luxury line item in the budget to slash year after year. We have an army in this country that is millions of people strong. They are on the front lines every day in our commercial and public buildings, combating communicable diseases and remov-ing harmful contaminants. As a society, we need to recognize their value and provide these workers with the tools, training and confidence to keep our indoor environments healthy for us and for future genera-tions. CM Sincerely, Matt Gallinger Publisher of Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® Director of Cleaning Management Institute ® 6 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • August 2009
CMM – Archives Aug 2009: 6
