Liang Zhang earned up to £190,000 a year as a cleaner. (Image: KTVU)
A man dubbed “the world’s richest cleaner” earned almost £200,000 a year.
Liang Zhao Zhang worked for the rail network Bay Area Rapid Transport (BART) in San Francisco, earning a basic salary of £45,000 a year and £11,500 in company benefits.
Public records unveiled by campaign group Transparent California show Zhang also earned up to £130,000 a year in overtime alone.
He reportedly worked every day of the year in 2015, using his holidays to earn pay for 365 days. He also worked overtime most days – and at one point Zhang worked 17-hour days for 18 days straight. From 2014 to 2017, Zhang earned a combined £545,556 in pay and benefits.
Robert Fellner of Transparent California told : “It’s absolutely outrageous. For janitors that’s obscene! It’s unconscionable.”
Liang Zhang worked for BART in San Francisco. (Image: Getty)
However, critics claimed that Zhang couldn’t have done that much genuine overtime, saying he hid in a closet when he was meant to be working.
According to KTVU, BART CCTV appeared to show Zhang disappearing into a closet “for hours at a time” during his shift.
On the first day of their investigation, they alleged Zhang appeared to have gone into the closet twice, for 54 minutes and 90 minutes, respectively.
On the second day, he allegedly spent 90 minutes in the closet in the afternoon and another 78 minutes behind the door later that evening.
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A BART spokesperson said she couldn’t verify Zhang in the footage and defended janitors, saying they “may be cleaning, repairing equipment, or taking breaks in that closet, but the agency does not track breaks”.
When questioned about 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 members 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.”