ISS spies on staff

Last year, RMT cleaners working for ISS on the Jubilee, Northern, and Piccadilly Lines (JNP) contract fought a heroic battle to try and stop the introduction of "biometric fingerprinting" machines. The union balloted for action, and cleaners boycotted the machines. They were subsequently locked out for months on end. (Click here for background to the dispute).

A strike ballot in September returned a huge majority for action (see here), and ISS and RMT finally reached a deal that saw locked-out cleaners returned to work, with the option of being transferred to alternative contracts without biometric booking-on. But, fundamentally, ISS got its way: the machines were introduced.

Now, the company referred to by many of its staff as "International Slave Services" has taken its Orwellian practises even further, and, with TubeLines' go-ahead, installed a CCTV camera in the cleaners' store room at Stratford. Cleaners use the room for breaks, to change, and to eat food; cleaners are essentially being spied on when they're not even on the company's time!

The biometric machines have been faulty and unreliable since they were introduced, and apparently some machines mysteriously keep getting damaged, with fuses going missing. But installing CCTV cameras to spy on workers on their breaks seems way beyond what TubeLines and ISS need to do to protect their assets.

The introduction of the machines was itself a huge intrusion into workers' privacy that contravenes basic human rights and civil liberties. CCTV cameras in store rooms are yet another example of this exploitative, Orwellian culture.