CLEANERS at Facebook’s London offices are to vote on the possibility of strike action over excessive workloads and the dismissal of their union rep, it was announced today.

The Cleaners & Allied Independent Workers Union (CAIWU) said the ballot is likely to be held in mid-October, with industrial action following in early December if approved.

Outsourced bosses at Churchill Group began to impose “impossible” workloads on cleaners in the spring, the union said, including doubling the surface area needed to be cleaned and introducing new time limits on different tasks.

Workers have reported exhaustion, severe back pain, stress, deteriorating mental health and, in one case, internal bleeding as a result, CAIWU said.

The cleaners are now asking for Facebook cleaning to be brought back in-house, the union confirmed. 

CAIWU organiser Bruce Coker said outsourcing is the problem, as demands for work to done as cheaply as possible “means making cleaners work harder for less and less money.”

The union also intends to take the case of cleaners’ supervisor and union rep Guillermo Camacho, dismissed after protests last month, to an employment tribunal.   

Churchill Group has been contacted for comment.