*This story was collected as part of the Regional Organizing Academy initiative, which aims to document 100 stories of workers’ victories, demonstrating how collective action through trade unions can bring about real change in workplaces and workers’ lives.

When we think of workers at a cement plant, we usually picture heavy machinery operators, engineers, mechanics, or truck drivers. Few people think about those without whom the plant simply could not function for a single day: the workers responsible for cleaning the production facilities.

At the Kant Cement Plant in Kyrgyzstan, that responsibility rests largely with women. Every morning, they are among the first to arrive. Every evening, they are among the last to leave. Their job is to clean production areas where cement dust accumulates every day, a physically demanding task that few people notice and even fewer truly appreciate.

Like many essential jobs, their work is almost invisible. Until one day, it wasn’t.

For months, the cleaners repeatedly asked management to provide them with non-woven cleaning cloths needed to carry out proper wet cleaning. Without them, cement dust could not be safely removed from the workplace. Nothing changed.

So, instead of accepting the situation individually, the women acted together through their trade union. They continued coming to work but collectively refused to carry out wet cleaning until the employer provided the necessary equipment. Without proper cleaning materials, the dust was no longer removed; it simply filled the air during dry sweeping.

The impact was immediate.

By the end of the first day, workers across the plant noticed how much harder it had become to breathe. By the second day, it was clear that production could not continue safely under such conditions. On the third day, management supplied the cleaners with the equipment they had been requesting all along.

The message could not have been clearer. The work of the cleaners was not secondary. It was essential to the health of every worker and to the safe operation of the entire plant.

But the story did not end there. When the time came to negotiate wages, the trade union fought for higher pay for every category of worker. The negotiations resulted in an average salary increase of 22 percent across the enterprise. The cleaners received 50 percent.

Their collective action had not only improved their working conditions but had also transformed the way their work was valued.

The story of the cleaners at the Kant Cement Plant reminds us that some workers remain invisible only because they do their jobs so well that everyone else takes them for granted. But when workers stand together through their union, invisible work becomes impossible to ignore.

Because they are not invisible. They are indispensable.