Going Private: The Implications of Privatization for Women's Work

This article is about the impact of'privatization' on the conditions of employment of women who work as cleaners. It comes out of research in progress on the cleaning industry as a whole, but here the focus is on women's cleaning jobs in the National Health Service (NHS). It argues that as more and more cleaning services are sub-contracted out to private contractors, the already poor pay and conditions found in this work can be seen to be deteriorating even further. This is because it is very difElcult to protect the pay and conditions of sub-contracted employment either through employment legislation or trade union