In the new year, the cleaning team here in the Askja building was changed. This has happened regularly during the last years. You hear an incredible variety of languages spoken by the cleaners, who have, without exception, proved themselves to be really nice people when you get to know them a little. First these tasks were carried out by 'native' Icelanders, as well as Vietnamese who had emigrated to Iceland. Then we had a Polish team, followed by cleaning staff from Lithuania. I still haven‘t found out where the new cleaning team comes from. But these people are jovial and easy to have around, just like those who preceded them.

Of course this is one of the telltale signs of globalisation. Free flow of labour and all that stuff. But there is something in all this which I find disconcerting. Before, the cleaners were employees of the University itself. Then these tasks were outsourced in the name of financial savings. And we do not know how the contractors think. Could it be that people are regularly fired, before they get too uppity about their wages and conditions, in order to bring in new and docile labourers? I do not know. I do not know their wages – I would like to believe that wage agreements are being honoured, but I would not be surprised if the naked minimum wage rate is used. And the minimum wage in Iceland is just that – minimal.

The concept of "corporate social responsibility" is much brandied about nowadays by private firms and state institutions alike. I even recall hearing the top administration people at the University of Iceland utter those words. I wonder if this outsourcing of cleaning was part of increased social responsibility on part of the University? I do not know.