"If you go together and if you fight for it, then you are visible."
Over the last four episodes of this series, we've heard about the daily struggles, exhaustion, the invisibility, and the structures that keep these burdens in place. In our final episode, we ask cleaners themselves what resistance looks like.
From “Justice for Janitors” across the Atlantic, to the Cleaners Parliament in the Netherlands,this episode traces the rise of worker-led organising—and shows how cleaners are turning isolation into solidarity, and silence into a demand for justice that can no longer be ignored.
In this episode, we hear from:🗣️Khadija Hiati, who started as a cleaner and went on to serve as President of the Dutch Cleaners' Parliament from 2011 to 2024. She describes the shock of being disrespected on her very first day—and why she decided to fight back, becoming a trailblazer for women with migration backgrounds.
🔥Herrie Hoogenboom, a veteran union organiser in the Netherlands who helped shape the Cleaners' Parliament campaign. He explains why the movement "radicalised" his views on politics, why they called it a "parliament" to give workers dignity, and how they organised sit-ins, strikes, and a historic demonstration of 800 undocumented workers.
🇺🇸🇲🇽Valery Alzaga, who brought the legendary Justice for Janitors (J4J) organising model from the United States to Europe. She shares the non-negotiable principles of the campaign: workers must lead the decisions, unions must research their opposition better than they know themselves, and when the "nice way" fails, escalation is justified.
🇩🇪 Zeynep Bicici (returning from Episode 4), President of UNI Europa Property Services, on Germany's "uprising of the invisibles"—the strike where women dared to make themselves visible and demand proper pay and respect.
🎧 Unsung Cleaners is a podcast by UNI Europa, co-funded by the European Commission. The show is produced by Seden Anlar. Interviews and narration by Gail Rego. Project coordination and interpretation by Alessia Mora and Mark Bergfeld. Special thanks to all the cleaners and union organisers who shared their stories and to dubbers Seden Anlar and Alessia Mora.
