‘World’s best-paid cleaner’ earns a £190,000 salary by working EVERY DAY of the year and at one point pulled 17-hour days for 18 days straight
A CLEANER in San Francisco who earns almost a £190,000 salary by working every day of the year – and at one point even pulled 17-hour days for 18 days straight.
Liang Zhao Zhang, who works for regional rail network Bay Area Rapid Transport (BART), may be the best paid janitor in the world, with his generous basic salary of £45,000 a year and another £11,500 in company benefits.
Public records unveiled by campaign group Transparent California shows Zhang has also been able to pocket an eye-popping £130,000-a-year in overtime payments alone.
Robert Fellner of Transparent California told KTVU : "It’s absolutely outrageous. For janitors that’s obscene! It’s unconscionable."
Salary data obtained by KTVU also revealed that he was one of 49 BART workers whose overtime pay exceeded their basic salaries.
Over the past three years, Zhang has earned a combined £545,556 in pay and benefits.
Time records show he worked every single day in 2015 including weekends – and used his holidays to rake in pay for 365 days that year.
It also revealed most days he also worked overtime – and at one point Zhang worked 17-hour days for 18 days straight.
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But Zhang's eye-popping salary has raises some serious questions, with critics claiming he hid in a closet when he was meant to be working.
According to a KTVU investigation, BART CCTV footage appeared to show Zhang disappearing into a closet "for hours at a time" during his shift.
They reported on the first day of their investigation: "Zhang appears to go into the closet twice, for 54 minutes and 90 minutes respectively.
"On the second day of video, he spends 90 minutes in the closet in the afternoon, and another 78 minutes behind the door later that evening."
A BART spokesperson said while she can't verify Zhang in the footage, she defended janitors saying they "may be cleaning, repairing equipment, or taking breaks in that closet, but the agency does not track breaks".
When questioned over Zhang's records and pay, company bosses said their employee simply never refuses extra work.
He highlighted that their cleaners spend most of their time cleaning up urine, faeces and needles – which no other staff want to do.
BART’s Chief Transportation Officer Roy Aguilera said: "People are not raising their hands and saying, ‘I want some of that overtime.’
"Mr Zhang has said 'yes', he’s worked hard, he’s completed his assignments, so I stand by the work he’s done."
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