UNPAID WORKERS - THIS IS LONDON CALLING!!!
CLEANERS STRIKE HITS THE CITY
Early morning contract cleaners hired by the City of London at Guildhall have staged a two day strike in protest at unpaid wages. The 34 cleaners only get the minimum wage, but even then cleaning contractor Ocean has underpaid many of them continuously over the last 3 months, despite asking them to work extra hours.
Their patience ran out on Tuesday 14 and Wednesday 15 June, when those still unpaid refused to lift a finger until the company gave them assurances they would be paid. Their other workmates agreed to stay put with them in the reception area in solidarity for the duration of their two hour shift. The situation is now on a knife edge, with the company issuing some ‘amended’ payslips, and promising that the rest of the shortfall will be made good this week and in next month’s pay packet.
The workers, who hail from many different countries, are meanwhile presenting a collective grievance and have vowed to protest if the company fails to come up with the goods.
They belong to the IWW’s 640 (Cleaners and Allied Trades) branch. The last visible protest movements by City cleaners were at UBS's Liverpool Street offices in 2010 and the Willis Building in 2009.
Sent by: IWW 640 (Cleaners and Allied Trades branch)
This is the UK, you would think that our millionaire PM and his millionaire cabal with their "Big Society" would step in and tell the employer that "we are all in this together", that'll be the day. I have no doubt that the employers board of directors will be on Champagne drinking terms with our millionaire public school thugs who are in charge of The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption. Our media are not slow to run an article about slave labour and unpaid workers in developing countries, adding the usual "tut-tut, those foreigners" but are not so keen in pointing out blatant exploitation right here at the heart of their stinking system of capitalism.
