Cleaners at City University have begun a campaign of protests to combat precarious outsourced contracts and alleged wage theft, with the help of the International Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) union.
On Friday 18 March several cleaners marched through Northampton Square and City University buildings carrying banners, chanting, and blowing Vuvuzelas to attract attention.
According to Clara Garcia, an organiser with the IWGB, the cleaners took action because the University’s subcontracted cleaning firm Julius Rutherfoord and Co has allegedly refused to pay wages for two weeks leading up to the protest.
Chris Jarvis of Julius Rutherfoord and Co said: “It would be unlawful for us not to pay in full and we have never illegitimately withheld any payments. In agreement with the university, we adopt the latest LLW rates of pay on 1 April every year, this is well before the 15 May annual deadline as stipulated by the Living Wage Foundation.”
The union also acted because according to Garcia employees “are too scared to and intimidate to go on sick leave”.
Garcia said: “The university does not take responsibility for their subcontractors” and stated that the cleaners were demanding their wages be paid in full by 25 March.
However, Jarvis said that he “would personally be horrified if this were true, but I have not been presented with any evidence at all to substantiate this”.
Other demands made by the cleaners include being directly employed by the university and a wage increase in line with the London Living Wage, which they allege they are currently not being paid.
Maria, one of the cleaners at the protest, told Islington Now: “We are demanding that the University puts pressure on the company to pay our salary because we are cleaning the university, and everyone is making use of the facilities. They are overworking us, we used to be 40 people and now we are 23 on the same shifts in the same area. What we want is for the outsourcing companies… to stop exploiting us and for the university to contract us directly with better pay, better sick leave and better holidays.”
Samuel, another cleaner on the protest said: “We are demanding the wages be paid. The company always says they have administrative issues. There are always so many issues about payslips. There are never any issues with being overpaid. They never make those sorts of mistakes.”
Garcia told Islington Now that there were 200 cleaners at City University and the IWGB intended to mobilise them too: “There is a lot more to come, we are going to campaign for an in-house company.”
This is not the first-time outsourced cleaners have taken strike action in London universities. A 10-year outsourcing battle was won by some University of London cleaners against firms Beatty Balfour and OCS in November 2020. In late 2021, cleaners at University of the Arts London first took strike action to try and win in house contracts and are engaged in an ongoing series of protests and strikes over the issue.
In a statement on Twitter, the IWGB Universities of London branch said: “We regularly see these abuses across the city, as universities continue to outsource cleaners and other facilities staff, leaving their workers in the hands of cowboy contractors.”
Jarvis added: “We have a motivated, high performing cleaning team at City University with long service and very little incidence of HR issues over the many years that we have managed this contract. Our employees’ welfare is our primary concern, and this includes them being paid fairly and always being treated in the correct manner.”
City University did not respond with a comment.
