A longtime contract cleaning worker died while on the job at Simon Fraser University. In the aftermath, co-workers are trying to shed light on the horrendous working conditions and employer negligence which preceded her death.
Kulbir Kaila, a 61-year-old Punjabi worker, passed away on Monday, July 28th at 2:30 PM. She had worked at the elite BC university’s Burnaby Campus for over 10 years where, on the day of her passing, she was responsible for cleaning an area 2.5x larger than a typical daily workload. Several of Kulbir’s coworkers had reported her chronic knee pain and high levels of stress due to overwork to both their union local, CUPE 3338, and their direct employer, BEST Service Pro (BEST) but their concerns were dismissed as attempts to create “drama”.
Horrible Working Conditions
Multiple workers who spoke to The North Star spoke about their terrible working conditions. Workers often have to clean 5 or more areas across the 1.7 sq km campus every day, when they say a typical workload is 2 areas. According to cleaning staff, the current working conditions came about because of a mass layoff in 2023, when 26 cleaning workers were fired. Since then, five new managers and supervisors have been hired while the number of workers has remained the same.
Before Kulbir’s death, cleaning staff had been calling BEST’s “hotline” saying that “a worker is going to die soon” because of the extreme amounts of overwork. An assistant manager told them that their attempts were “worthless” and to just forget about it.
A member of SDU+ (Student, Staff, and Faculty for a Democratic University), a campus-based organization that has been investigating the issues faced by the cleaning staff, spoke to The North Star about the current working conditions.
“We have noticed that many different workers have filed Worksafe BC reports because of injuries at work”, said the member. “Since they’re so short-staffed, especially during the summer term, what ends up happening is workers who are healthier have to take on even more work and more areas to clean, which leads to further injuries. It’s been a non-stop cycle”.
An anonymous worker told us that since Kulbir’s death, no one has wanted to clean the Technology and Science Complex 2 (TASC 2), which is where Kulbir passed away. Since BEST has not redistributed Kulbir’s workload, the worker — who recently came back to work post-knee surgery — is now responsible for this area on top of their own assigned areas.
Discrimination and Harassment
Workers also detailed the discrimination they face in their workplace. According to one worker, supervisors and managers “treat them like animals”, and workers of African descent have been further degraded and called “monkeys” by managers.
Another worker said that while she was on leave for 5 weeks due to a work-related injury, management called them every single day asking them when they would be back at work. Workers also mentioned the extreme levels of pestering they face from management, creating an “extremely stressful” work environment.
Surveillance and Automation
Several cleaning staff workers told The North Star that management surveilled them during their shifts. A worker recounted how a team lead took photos of them when they took their gloves off to “take a drink of water”. When the worker confronted the team lead, they said the photos would not be used against them. However, the worker was called into a meeting with management about said photos a week later.
Another incident happened when a worker turned pale and their blood pressure dropped while on the job. BEST reportedly sent a manager and a chauffeur to follow them to the emergency room to ensure they weren't “faking their medical emergency” and “attempting to create drama”. Managers were also reported enforcing arbitrary rules, such as locking the door on staff who were only one minute late, resulting in parts of their paychecks being cut.
In recent months, members of SDU+ have noticed supervisors training cleaning robots at SFU. At the same time, workers have been asking BEST to hire more people before the Fall 2026 semester begins, which will bring an influx of students and a higher workload.
PR Tactics
BEST representatives declared Kulbir’s death as unrelated to the workplace, and only a matter of legality and confidentiality. Workers reported seeing the CEO of BEST visiting the campus after Kulbir’s death, crying and weeping. Workers didn’t believe it was sincere, but rather, a public damage control “PR Stunt”. The North Star reached out to BEST for comments, but received no reply.
BEST has a reported revenue of over $50M per year, while the cleaning staff, mostly women from oppressed nations who don’t speak English, make $27 per hour. With the corporation's focus on training robots and automation, the future of cleaning workers is left unsaid.