To feel uncomfortable about well-off women with new Ukrainian women cleaners?

[Upsizer]

A lot of my well off acquaintances have new Ukrainian female cleaners and I feel very uncomfortable about it. They talk quite openly about wanting to support the women but have made no attempt to understand the women’s professional backgrounds and I feel it’s both virtue signalling but also somewhat inappropriate. I know the government has put nothing in place to support these trained professionals back into work but to me this smacks of virtue signalling while using vulnerable people as cash in hand staff. AIBU?

Yes I think you are. It's nice to earn a bit of money if you want to and you can.

I know lots of women who do a bit of cleaning on the side and they're perfectly happy to do so.

If they were forced into it I'd feel differently.

I see lots about this on FB and many of the women speak very little to zero English so cleaning is a good start to earning their own money while they pick up the language.

So long as they are paying them a fair hourly rate I don't see the problem. If the women don't have enough english they'll be unable to work in many other jobs. There is a big drive for english lessons for ukrainian families and in time they'll learn english and then be able to move back into their professional careers. I wouldn't be able to go to the Ukraine and work in my current career, I would have to do something like cleaning to earn money until my language was better. it's not exploitation

Nope. I'm with you, OP. Feels exploitative.

There's a real imbalance to it. These women could be doctors or professors or CEOs yet they're probably being made to feel grateful that they're allowed to clean some rich Brit's house.

Stop with your middle class angst! What's wrong with cleaning, unless of course you think you are better than a cleaner which most decent people don't so there isn't a problem.

If I was a refugee in Ukraine and was offered cash in hand cleaning work in well-to-do homes I'd jump at it. I have a career here yes, but I don't speak Ukrainian well enough to expect a job at the same level in that country as I have here, and even if I did, I would expect it to take 3 months to find the 'right' role...so meanwhile to put food on the table I'd absolutely take a cleaning gig.

FWIW our cleaners are Polish and they are without exception wonderful. Their leader (let's call her Petra) is a constant friend in my life. Her 'girls' come and go over weeks, months or years depending on their personal circumstances - we have students earning pocket money, Mums (and Dads) looking for part time flexible hours and older women also. Some have better qualifications than being 'just' a cleaner but this is what they're choosing to do now and it would be extremely rude of me to question their personal imperatives.

I bet you're not a cleaner.

I don't think it's being exploitative at all. If they have english they'll be able to carry on working in professional roles, if they don't they simply can't expect to be able to at this point. The important thing is that there is english language provision to enable them to pick up their careers when they have a better grasp of the language.

Anyway it's refreshing to see that Mumsnet would happily help people fleeing war torn countries where they've been hiding in bunkers wondering if their kids are going to survive by kindly allowing them to scrub their loos.

Make yourself useful, love! You're here thanks to our magnificence so get your marigolds on and give those pots a good going over.

I think you're the one who's virtue signalling.

They're providing work to people who need work and presumably paying them well. What's the issue? I spent months cleaning hotel rooms and scrubbing shit out of toilets after graduating with a first class degree because I graduated into a financial crisis and couldn't get anything in my industry. I saved up and emigrated eventually. It's not uncommon for people to be underemployed for whatever reason.

What do you suggest? That they should just start working as heart surgeons and barristers?

Can’t see the problem I would take any job if I needed a job
also with the hell they have been through they might want something you just turn up do your bit no challenges or stress

What if one of these women knew one of the Ukrainian women was a lawyer or a doctor? What do you expect your friends to do about it if a Ukrainian women who doesn’t speak much English wants to be employed as a cleaner?

Are you saying they shouldn’t be employing educated professionals in cleaning roles?

I have no skin in the game never having been a cleaner and never having had or wanted one.

I’m not sure what you want to happen instead.

Gotta love the old "your friends are being exploitative having cleaners" woman-of-the-people spiel alongside "these women could be doctors or professors or CEOs" (aka these women could have been the exploiters of cleaners in their own country woe is them).
Is there something wrong with being a cleaner? Is it somehow "worse" to be a cleaner if you used to be a doctor? Do you think it's inherently "better" to be a doctor? Or is there something wrong with being in the position where you hire one?
The hypocrisy is eye watering.

Or is there something wrong with being in the position where you hire one?
I meant a cleaner not a doctor.

I think this says more about your prejudices than it does your friends’.

I don't think there is anything wrong in employing a cleaner, and it makes perfect sense to me that someone new to a country, who probably didn't pack their up to date CV and evidence of professional qualifications as they fled for their lives, would do some cleaning work to get cash together and find their feet.

What I am uncomfortable with is (if its true) that the OP has more than one acquaintance who has just taken on a cleaner. This suggests to me that they either couldn't afford one previously or have just sacked a more expensive one, and are exploiting these women by paying below market rates.

Fair work for Fair pay - fine.
Exploitation - not fine.

Or they could have been cleaners in Ukraine and are continuing their chosen career here also. You are assuming a lot!

I was a cleaner for many years. Prior to that I was a professional and now I'm a professional again. I'd argue that I was also a 'professional' when I was cleaner because I was bloody good at it. I also enjoyed the work.
As long as they aren't paying 10 p/h like half of mumsnet seems to think is generous then good luck to them.

Of course it's absolutely fine. The women aren't being forced to do the work, and are presumably paid the going rate. It'll give them something of an income while they find their feet and they can leave as soon as something better comes along.

My cleaner is local, am I insulting her? Or is it only Ukranian women that are insulted by cleaning?

I don't get the angst. Someone wants a flexible job that doesn't require spoken English, someone else has suitable work. Is there an expectation that the candidates should be vetted first to ensure they are not over qualified for the role? What if they want the role as it works for them? Would there be a process for over riding their exclusion?

The last cleaner I employed had an BSc, MSc, PGCE, and also worked as an education advisor. She enjoyed the physical aspect of cleaning (an alternative to the gym), and the extra cash. It worked for both of us.

What form is the virtue signalling taking?

Are they patting themselves on the back for taking on Ukrainian refugees as cleaners? That is shit.

There is nothing wrong with being a cleaner.

You wouldn’t describe your friends as ‘exploitative’ if they were ‘using’ these women as vets or lawyers or traffic engineers. You don’t like it because you see cleaning as undignified. YABU.

Classic sexism at play. No other job is considered 'demeaning' in this way, and no other job assumes both the sex of the employee and the moral character of both parties.

Are these single women employing cleaners? Unlikely. So you think the employers are women because you think cleaners do womens work.

Since time began, newly arrived emigrants have had to take whatever work is going, to get themselves set up. Why is cleaning exploitative compared to any other source of income?

Exactly this. What is so wrong with being a cleaner?

I've never had a cleaner and never been one, but you are being awful OP with the virtue signalling. Why do you feel superior to your friends?
What I have done, although still not as a cleaner, is moved abroad where I didn't speak the language to native or near native level. My degree from a Russell group university doesn't mean that I can work in another country in a job that I could have got in the UK without speaking the local language. You take what you can get and are happy to have it, so long as you are getting a fair wage and reasonable conditions, that's all you can expect if you don't speak the language.