Elon Musk cancels cleaning services at Twitter

10th of January 2023
Elon Musk cancels cleaning services at Twitter

Twitter's San Francisco headquarters are no longer being cleaned following a clash between new owner Elon Musk and the company's cleaning staff.

Employees have become increasingly unsettled since the takeover by Musk in October 2022. By November last year he had sacked 80 per cent of employees and the working environment for those remaining had been radically altered, according to former Twitter janitor Julio Alvarado.

The ex-janitor, who worked at Twitter for 10 years, claimed that private security guards began watching him closely when he cleaned the tech mogul's office. And he was told by one of Musk's senior assistants that his role would soon be obsolete and that robots would take over all cleaning tasks.

"People used to work without worries," said Alvarado. "Now we are afraid."

Cleaning staff members were informed in December that their jobs were under threat and they reacted by staging a strike. Musk then responded by cancelling all cleaning services.

San Francisco city attorney David Chiu is investigating the firings to see whether Musk broke the law. "Elon Musk has had a long history of flouting labour laws," he said. "While I'm not surprised this happened, I feel for these workers. We will be looking into this further."

Meanwhile current and former employees claim the termination of cleaning services has left the offices smelling of takeaway food and body odour. The washrooms have also become dirty - and some workers have had to resort to bringing in their own toilet rolls from home since there is no-one to replenish the supply.

 

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