Efforts to end months of strike action by workers in the contract cleaning sector failed on Wednesday night as the unions continued to press for a new sick pay agreement.

A spokesman for employers’ organisation OSB told news agency ANP it is ‘incomprehensible and unrealistic’ that the unions had turned down ‘the best pay and conditions deal in the country’.
Employers have offered a 5% pay rise over two years, but the unions also want a new agreement on sick pay to ensure workers are paid for the first two days they are off ill.
Cleaners began taking industrial action at the beginning of the year. Their previous pay deal, which expired at the end of 2011, was finally sealed in April 2010 after nine weeks of strikes.