Outsourced workers at the University of London are keeping up the pressure on management as part of their “3 Cosas” campaign to win pensions, holiday, and sick pay equality with their directly employed colleagues.
An unannounced demonstration disrupted a conference in the university’s flagship Senate House building on 28 June, and while some attendees were angry at the disruption, many expressed support for the workers. Demonstrators briefly blocked the doors to Vice Chancellor Adrian Smith’s office.
The “Justice for Cleaners” campaign at SOAS, one of the University of London’s member colleges, also plans a protest for Thursday 4 July. Speaking at Workers’ Liberty’s Ideas for Freedom event, SOAS cleaner Lenin Escudero Zarsoza said: “Before we started our campaign, we felt invisible. Look at us now. Now we feel like human beings.”
London Underground cleaners have expanded their union organisation following management’s use of immigration raids to attempt to break organisation amongst cleaners employed by ISS. A cleaners’ rep writing in the rank-and-file bulletin Tubeworker said: “ISS used immigration law to crush a potential strike, but ISS has not succeeded in kicking the fight out of cleaners. [Bosses] hoped newly-employed workers would be cowed by fear, but most have eagerly joined RMT after seeing you can’t stand alone against such a brutal management […] Once the bosses learn that we can’t be intimidated, they will have nowhere to hide.”
Industrial Workers of the World cleaners at the British Medical Association’s HQ have also taken a step forward.
A motion to back their campaign demands was discussed at the BMA’s Annual Representative Meeting, and will now be discussed by the BMA Council.
