ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Legislation and how it will impact on business is on the minds of building service contractors in the United States - writes Ron Segura.

Legislation and how it will impact on the cleaning sector is currently on the minds of United States cleaning contractors. Some are wondering about the impact it will have on the operations of their companies. Here are some comments from three industry professionals.

Rich Fineo - MCR director of development, DTZ, a UGL Company: “Insurance rates have always been an enormous factor for any service company in a variety of disciplines, but perhaps none more so than a BSC. When you consider the financial impact of cleaning and maintaining a structure, as compared to costs for security, landscaping, etc, you quickly recognise this is the big ticket item.

“So any changes in the structure of employee taxation, most notably workers’ compensation, taxes unique to geography like city taxes, etc are going to dramatically effect operating costs that are ultimately passed along to the client.”

Dramatic effect

David Hammond - coo, CSI International: “We do not believe we will see much effect from the healthcare reform in the first two years since majority of our full time labour is already offered medical and dental benefits. Many do decline due to the copay amounts and it looks as though the penalty for the employees will be far less for the first two years.

“It appears from what we know that when the penalty in year three increases it may then become a closer issue and employees may then decide to enrol. That is the point when we would expect to see our costs double.”

Michael Diamond - coo Premier Services:

“We have serious concerns on the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on our staff. While I respect the intention of the act to provide healthcare to more people, we have porters, matrons and other full time positions where our clients have already budgeted the costs into their company. In our current economy significant increases in budgets are not realistic.

Jobs to be cut?

“I fear as costs increase due to ACA, clients will reduce services to stay within their budgets and cut jobs. I believe full time work will shrink because of this.”

In the Western United States I have had the opportunity to assist in forming the Building Service Contractors Association International (BSCAI) Western Task Force which is composed of contractors, manufacturers and distributors who are concerned about the issue of insurance reform. These types of groups are doing all they can to provide much needed information on how to deal with these pressing issues.