Students and office workers across China urge employers to give cleaning staff a break by providing designated rest areas.
It’s noon, and janitor Xu Ping is surreptitiously eating her lunch in the corner of a restroom, wedged between a large trash can and a toilet cubicle. Time is of the essence — her walkie-talkie could burst into life at any moment to alert her to a mess that needs mopping up.
Tales of cleaning staff taking breaks in unusual spots such as restrooms, stairwells, and supply closets are common across China, particularly in major cities. It happens at office buildings, subway stations, schools, shopping malls, hospitals, and countless other workplaces.
In recent times, many people have taken to social media to call for dedicated break rooms for cleaners, particularly in March, when there was a surge in related posts on the Chinese lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu, or RedNote. The situation has led to employees demanding that their bosses find solutions, students pressing university leaders to act, and others lobbying the central government through its online services platform.
Evidence suggests this outpouring of support is already forcing employers to rethink how they treat janitors and custodians.
Caught napping
Fang Yun was interning at a top-tier hospital when she first encountered Xu eating alone in a restroom in her department. She spotted her just as she walked out of a cubicle. “Had I known she was there, I wouldn’t have peed. It must have disgusted her,” Fang says, recalling the incident with embarrassment. After that, she began checking every corner of the restroom for Xu before using the toilet. If she spotted the cleaner, she would visit the facilities on another floor.
In the afternoons, Fang would occasionally see Xu taking a nap while leaning against the restroom wall. With the constant threat of hospital inspections, cleaners are not allowed to remain idle. Most of the time, Xu would be standing in a corridor — mop in one hand, water bottle in the other — ready to spring into action.
A cleaning worker warms herself in the sunshine. Courtesy of the interviewees
Zhang Teng, a university student in Xi’an, capital of the northwestern Shaanxi province, described a similar situation on her campus. Without designated break areas, the cleaning staff there are often found snoozing in corridors and empty classrooms.
“We can be called to clean up anywhere, at any time — you need to respond immediately,” says Xiao Lan, 59, who has worked as a cleaner at a Shanghai Metro station for nearly two years. The station has a break room on basement level two, or B2, but she tends to rest in a supply closet near her work zone on B1.
During rush hours, the restrooms can be overrun with commuters, many of whom “forget to flush,” so Xiao needs to check each cubicle every 10 minutes to ensure they remain spotless, as well as maintain the station exits, stairways, escalators, passageways, and bulletin boards. From 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., she is locked in a nonstop battle with dirt and grime. “As long as you’re awake, you’re working,” she says.
As a result, the break room on B2 — just 100 meters away — is too far to go. She says the supply closet is the “optimal surveillance spot” in case of an emergency.
On quieter afternoons, Xiao will sit in this windowless, 2-square-meter room for about 10 minutes, scrolling on her phone, sipping water, or grabbing some shut-eye. Once her large cleaning cart and chair have been squeezed inside, there’s just enough space for one person to stand. The cart carries all her “magic tools” — insecticide spray, adhesive remover, and disinfectants — as well as her lunchbox, water bottle, and some fruit.
The supply closet used by Xiao, Shanghai. Courtesy of the interviewees
One wall of the supply closet is adorned with a brown plastic butterfly. Xiao found it discarded in a passageway, washed it, and hung it using double-sided tape. Now, it keeps her company during breaks.
In malls and other commercial buildings, rest areas for cleaning staff are also often deep underground, hidden in parking lots. Office cleaner Li Li in Shanghai says it takes her eight to 10 minutes to get to her team’s break room on B2 via the stairs. The room has tables, chairs, and charging outlets, although most staff only visit at mealtimes, while Li prefers to eat her lunch in the supply closet next to a restroom.
The heavy workload for cleaning staff means every day is a race against time, forcing them to sacrifice rest in fear of finishing late or receiving fines from their supervisors.
Bearing fruit
Liu Hong’s daily routine as the cleaner of a seven-story dormitory building at a Shanghai university is daunting. She’s responsible for the lobby, seven corridors, 14 restrooms, a shower area, laundry room, and other amenities, as well as alternating with a colleague to run an outdoor waste management station and sweep the surrounding roads.
The 43-year-old, who’s been in the job for more than a decade, works 10-hour shifts, six days a week, and affords herself only a 10-minute lunch break. She’s renowned among supervisors and students for her strong work ethic.
Starting at 6 a.m., before the students begin dumping their trash on the way to early classes, Liu will sort the piles of garbage that have amassed overnight, separating out plastic bottles, flattening cardboard boxes, and tipping out the dregs from milk tea, noodle, and soup containers. She used to wear gloves, but it slowed her down, so now she does everything with her bare hands.
By 9 a.m., after the morning rush, the four waist-high trash cans at the waste management station are overflowing again. Liu has to empty them at least five times a day, which requires her plunging halfway inside to collect any scraps.
Next, Liu will wipe down the wall tiles in the dorm building, mop the floors, and scrub the toilets on each floor. “I can clean a place until it’s shiny and the sinks are hair-free, but stains from toothpaste, foam, spicy oil, and noodle soup soon reappear. So, I need to go back,” she says.
500px/VCG
The building has no elevators, so Liu is constantly climbing stairs. After spending almost all day on her feet, as well as squatting down and bending over, she’s developed chronic pain in her back, legs, and shoulders. Once, she slipped on shampoo that had been spilled on the stairs, fracturing her left leg. She lay immobilized for more than 10 minutes, fearing that she was paralyzed, before help arrived.
She originally considered taking on an additional night job, but changed her mind. “This job alone exhausts me and is already making me sick. With such low pay, medical expenses would bankrupt me,” Liu says, adding that she collapses into bed by 8 p.m. most nights.
Like others in her job, Liu needs to work fast when problems arise to avoid penalties. Cleaners at the university earn about 3,400 yuan ($465) a month, but they can face fines of up to 200 yuan for complaints. Fortunately, Liu has never received one.
She smiles whenever the topic turns to the students in her dorm. She feels well treated — they greet her warmly every day and regularly thank her for her hard work, while those who are preparing to graduate will often seek her out to say goodbye, which moves her deeply.
Once, on a winter’s day, a student saw her eating while sitting on cardboard on the floor of a bike shed. They came over and said, “Auntie, I have a padded stool upstairs, you can have it and sit for a while.” Liu declined but was happy with the gesture. Other students have given her gloves or small appliances that she can sell for scrap. “Their kindness makes me want to make their living spaces as comfortable as possible,” she says.
As she speaks, Liu begins to cry, but at no point does she slow down as she handles a pile of discarded cardboard boxes, which she will sell at the nearby recycling station. She makes about 30 yuan a day doing this, providing essential extra income.
When asked why she works so hard, Liu says, “Because I have no choice.”
A cleaning worker in Chengdu, Sichuan province, 2023. VCG
Originally from the eastern Shandong province, Liu lives in Shanghai with her husband, paying more than 1,000 yuan a month in rent. She says that she recently had to borrow 6,000 yuan to pay for her mother’s hospital treatment, while the couple sends 1,000 yuan a month to her husband’s parents, who are both in their 70s and bedridden. Their daughter is also in her second year of high school in Shandong and needs several hundred yuan a month for living expenses.
“The stress is so much that it’s turned my hair white,” she says, adding that the intense pressure means she treasures her job.
Liu, who left formal education after middle school, arrived in Shanghai alone more than two decades ago, and initially sold fresh produce from a stall before opening a fruit shop. “Working alone, I starved and exhausted myself. When I got heatstroke, I couldn’t work for 10 days and the shop had to close,” she says.
She went back to running a stall, but her desire to make fast money resulted in her falling for a scam, and she lost everything. Eventually, an old friend referred her for a cleaning job at the university, which helped her through those dark days.
Liu knew that returning home to her mountainous village, which has little farmland, was not an option. “Just a speck of soil would mean being able to grow wheat, but instead we must buy everything. The only way to make money is to labor elsewhere,” she explains. She and her husband had planned to save up to eventually open a fruit store in Shandong, but paying for their parents’ healthcare has plunged them into debt.
A cleaning worker takes a break by the street in Dongguan, Guangdong province, 2019. Shan Jun/VCG
Legal loopholes
Starting in March, Ye Qing, chancellor of the East China University of Political Science and Law, in Shanghai, began receiving letters from students almost daily, calling for dedicated rest areas for the 20-plus janitors on campus. About two weeks later, a special dining room was opened for them on the first floor of one of the women’s dorms, providing a fridge, microwave, air conditioning, and other amenities.
“Everyone’s happy to eat together. It’s livelier, and we can all chat,” says Mo Wen, one of the cleaners. She smiles at the thought of summer, when she can finally keep her lunch cool in a fridge rather than a stuffy supply closet where it’s likely to go bad.
However, in other workplaces, where such labor is outsourced to third-party companies, progress will likely be slower. “It’s complicated how these cleaners operate,” says Zhang Xiaoman, author of “My Mother, Cleaning Up,” which documents her mother’s experiences working as a janitor in Shenzhen, in the southern Guangdong province. “There are often several layers of outsourcing. Most cleaners are elderly women without labor contracts or social benefits.”
Xu Xudong, a partner at Fides Law Firm, in the eastern Jiangsu province, explains that unless break rooms are specified in the contract between a cleaning agency and its client, such as a shopping mall, it is difficult to demand they be provided.
Cleaning staff change clothing at a locker room in Wuhan, Hubei province, April 2025. He Yuxin/Hubei Daily/VCG
Another crucial point is that “rest areas” are not clearly defined in the law as being among labor conditions or protections, he says. Requirements vary by industry, job description, and role, so it’s difficult to have a unified legal standard.
Even if standing all day because there’s no break room causes a herniated disc, or if eating in a restroom causes illness, it would be difficult to establish in court that these are work-related injuries and that an employer is accountable, Xu adds. However, increased public attention and advocacy could bring about industry reforms regardless.
On spring evenings, Liu likes to go square dancing after work. Under the moonlight — dressed in a white skin-tight T-shirt, glistening sequin hip scarf, and worn casual pants — she jumps, twists, and spins along with the music, her long ponytail and earrings whirling. “I forget all my worries when I’m dancing,” she says.
At 5:30 a.m. the next day, she dons her uniform and cycles to the student dorm in the dawn light, hoping that one day she will have enough savings to start a new life.
(Due to privacy concerns, Xu Ping, Fang Yun, Zhang Teng, Xiao Lan, Li Li, Liu Hong, and Mo Wen are pseudonyms.)
A version of this article originally appeared in The Paper. It has been translated and edited for brevity and clarity, and is republished here with permission.
Translator: Vincent Chow; editors: Wang Juyi and Hao Qibao.
(Header image: Cleaning staff take a break in Wuhan, Hubei province, 2019. Wang Yongsheng/Hubei Daily/VCG)