New wins for London cleaners

Submitted by AWL on 30 August, 2012 - 10:38

Cleaners employed by the Resource Group at the prestigious London School of Economics have stopped a bosses' cuts plan that would have seen them lose up to £1,000 a year.

Managers wanted to impose a unilateral reduction in hours for all cleaners with no compensation, leading to a 20% pay cut. A union campaign, supported by LSE students, through July has finally succeeded in forcing Resource bosses to back down, and the cuts threat has been withdrawn.

Workers employed by Initial at the Societe Generale bank (the second largest bank in France and the eighth largest in the Eurozone) faced even worse cuts, with managers proposing to cut their hours in half and make some cleaners redundant without replacing them, meaning that remaining workers would have to do the work of more than one person in half the time! Societe Generale cleaners also face persistent management bullying, including being refused time off for family emergencies, and are paid below the London Living Wage of £8.30 an hour.

The cuts were due to come into effect on 3 September, but they have been suspended following the mere threat of industrial action by the workers' union, the Industrial Workers of Great Britain (IWGB).

The IWGB formed in August 2012 as an offshoot from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It traces its political lineage to the 1909 organisation of the same name, which was linked to the Socialist Labour Party of John MacLean (a sister organisation of the American group led by Daniel DeLeon).

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