Union victories in Museum-land

by New Worker correspondent

In  ‘Albertopolis’, the academic nickname for the London home of  colleges and museums that go back to the Victorian era, a small street union has at last won a recognition battle with the Science Museum.
On the advice of Albert, the Prince Consort, this slice of Kensington was purchased out of the profits from the Great Exhibition of 1851 to become a centre for the arts and science in the heart of the capital. This seat of learning soon became a magnet for students, scholars and visitors who still throng the hallowed halls of London’s great museums. But behind the scenes there’s been a protracted struggle between the poorly-paid workers who guard the galleries and a Management that, until now, had turned a blind eye to their just demands for more pay. 
Now the United Voices of the World (UVW) has, after a long battle, secured recognition at the Science Museum after a ruling by the Central Arbitration Committee, the court which decides such matters. 
 Earlier this year this independent union, that organises beyond the bureaucratic reach of the TUC, and was involved in a long campaign involving not just the Science Museum, but the neighbouring Natural History and Victoria & Albert museums, won pay rises ranging from 13 to 23 per cent after months of strike action. The union boasts that in seven months, security guards secured more than they had in the entire previous decade from their employer, contractor Wilson James.
 Prior to the strike many guards earned just £11.95 an hour, below the London Living Wage (LLW) of £13.15 at the time. Despite agreeing to pay the LLW, the highly profitable Wilson James delayed implementing it and initially refused to backdate payments. 
On securing victory, the union quoted a female security officer at the Science Museum who said “with UVW, we put up a massive fight and won more in seven months than in years. We protested in the streets, went to trustees’ offices, and stood up for ourselves across all three museums. It showed what’s possible when you’re united. We’re proud of what we achieved, but we know the fight isn’t over. The cost of living keeps going up, and pay needs to keep up too. We can’t let them drop the ball”.
 On Tuesday, UVW announced its recognition victory by stating that the security guards are now preparing to negotiate a strong first pay deal in 2026. UVW say that for years, Science Museum bosses have ignored the guards but now they have no choice but to sit down and negotiate with UVW workplace representatives over pay, hours and holidays and their working conditions. 
 Petros Elia, the UVW General Secretary, said “this is a major breakthrough for security guards at the Science Museum, their bosses have tried to ignore, but they can’t ignore them anymore. Now, UVW members will have a seat at the table and a collective voice in shaping their working lives. This victory is not only a testament to the unity, determination, and courage of the Science Museum’s security team – it’s a message to every worker across the UK; when workers stand together and refuse to back down, we win”.
 One wonders why it has taken so long, Non-Departmental Public Bodies are not the worst employers, and in theory at least, support trade union membership. Directly employed staff at these museums belong to the mandarins’ FDA (First Division Association), the high-castes’ Prospect and the biggest civil service union in the country, PCS. But as the arbitrators say in the ruling in favour of UVW “in December 2024, it [the Employer] approached PCS union in a bid to extend its recognition agreement to cover the Science Museum. To its credit, PCS rejected this offer, knowing it was a tactic to exclude UVW. PCS  proposed a joint recognition agreement with UVW, which the Employer was willing to accept despite knowing PCS had no mandate. This history confirms a pattern of behaviour: the Employer is not seeking the most representative union but the most convenient one. It is attempting to choose the union for its workers, a fundamental violation of the principle that this choice belongs to the workforce alone”.
Meanwhile at the British Library, in the slightly less loftier surroundings of King’s Cross, strike action by PCS seems to have taken the scalp of the Library’s CEO. 
 The union which represents the national library’s support staff and library assistants, called 300 staff out on strike in a pay dispute. The Library initially proposed a pay award of 2 per cent at most, with some receiving as little as 1.6 per cent, the threat of action increased the offer to 2.4 per cent (or £800 if higher) which is only slightly more than half the rate of inflation. The Library claims it cannot afford more because of rising energy costs and building materials.
The dispute has caused the closure of the reading rooms. Access to exhibitions has been hit. A number of speakers at planned events have pulled out in solidarity. 
 The local PCS Branch Chair said “we have quite a few colleagues here who are forced to take a second job in the evenings in order to make ends meet each month”. He added that if there is no immediate movement by management to resolve the dispute amicably, the mandate for industrial action which stretches well into next new year will be used. 
 He also pointed out that staff have no confidence in management’s abilities to run a national institution. Two years on from a cyber-attack in 2023 on-line access has only been partially restored with many research services remaining unavailable. Yet another restructuring plan is underway, which staff with experience of such matters fully expect to be a disaster. 
On Tuesday the Library’s recently appointed CEO Rebecca Lawrence, suddenly resigned, for as yet unknown reasons, but presumably  as a result of the dispute. Another side effect of the dispute is that plans to award directors with a £5,000 were abandoned when discovered by PCS.
The picket line has been visited by the grandees of the labour movement including PCS General Secretary Fran Heathcote, RMT General Secretary Eddie Dempsey and UCU General Secretary Jo Grady, largely because their own HQs are nearby and thus handy for a photo-shoot. Neighbouring MP Jeremy Corbyn turned up as did TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak. Oddly enough local MP, Sir Keir Starmer, has not put in an appearance... 

...and at the Tate

 ...over 100 PCS members working at the Tate Gallery’s four sites may soon be joining them. They are being balloted for possible strike action over pay this week.
 The Tate initially offered a 2 per cent rise for workers in 2025/26. “This has now been increased to 3 per cent, but is still lower than the Civil Service Pay Remit and does not address the issues of low pay at the institution,” say PCS. 
 Again Tate bosses do well for themselves, with senior leaders at Tate taking home total remuneration packages ranging from £195,000 to £320,000. The Art Newspaper partly refuted this by saying that these figures cited include increases in the value of Tate pensions and that all salaries at Tate are below £195,000 – so that’s alright then. 
 The Tate Management said “Tate has made careful savings this year in order to invest in staff pay and still achieve a balanced budget. This includes a 3 per cent salary increase for most roles, including all employees on the lowest three pay bands, while directors are taking a zero per cent increase to help balance the overall costs.” An unimpressed Fran Heathcote declared that “food prices, rent, energy bills, and transport costs are all surging, but they expect our members to live off crumbs.”
As the Tate workers gear up for industrial action, the struggle at the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield, which began in August is continuing. As the 40 workers include mine guides who are veterans of the 1984 miners’ strike they are no pushovers. 
 Unison has demanded an increase of 5 per cent or £1 per hour for all staff, whichever is greater, which it says is simply what Management agreed to recommend to the trustees. Management deny making any such promises and are now offering an extra 80 pence hourly. 
 Labour-run Wakefield Council recently passed a motion to withhold future grants to the Museum in solidarity with the striking workers in an effort to get management back to round the table. This means a loss of a £15,000 grants programme to support local schools and young people that was awarded through a competitive application process.

At the LSE

by New Worker correspondent

The London School of Economics, which older readers will recall was founded by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, authors of an important history of British trade unions, has acted viciously towards the leader of the 2017 strike by cleaners.
    Jamaican born Mildred Simpson, a member of the small non-TUC union, United Voices of the World, is a cleaner with 21 years of service at the LSE where she successfully led a strike which saw the ending of outsourcing. Now she is facing disciplinary action on very flimsy grounds with the aim of getting her sacked just before she reaches retirement age.
    Her alleged offence was to leave her post 15 minutes before the end of her shift on no less than three times in over two years.
    This she correctly points out is “all down to bullying and victimisation. I feel that they’ve been targeting me for years” she tells us. This constant picking on me seemed to intensify after our successful strike against outsourcing. I suspect this repetitive singling out has to do far more with my union activities than anything else.”
    Like many low paid workers she has effectively two jobs at the LSE: First as a cleaner from 6 am to 8.30 am and later as a janitor from 9 am to 5 pm. That long day is even longer because although her shift starts she is “in LSE every morning from around 5:15am because I’m a team leader and I want to have enough time before my actual shift starts so everything is ready before my team arrives.”
    As a reward for her trade union activities: “I’ve had several meetings about minor issues which have fizzled out without any result, but this constant picking on me seemed to intensify after our successful strike against outsourcing. I suspect this repetitive singling out has to do far more with my union activities than anything else.”
    She has also complained about understaffing which bosses interpret as her not being able to do her job properly, which she feels is unfair.
    As result of the stress from this victimisation she has been signed off sick by her doctor and had go to counselling to be able to cope.
    Despite this she remains defiant and advises any workers in a similar position to “keep your spirits up, keep your strength up, because we, in the union, support each other. Whatever they are doing to us, we are not standing down”.
    It is a pity that small street unions such as UVW are necessary. They are essentially the result of the big general unions, Unite, Unison and GMB failing to organise the migrant workers who make up the majority of cleaning workers. They have the resources to do so, but many of their recruitment campaigns begin and end with a photo-shoot with the General Secretary instead of the sustained work necessary. Among the TUC unions, only RMT have deployed their resources in this direction.

No, we can’t pay!

 By New Worker correspondent

Protestors gathered outside Downing Street on Saturday to condemn the spiralling cost of living, with demonstrations co-organised by the People's Assembly and held in over 40 towns and cities across the UK, including Parliament Square in the heart of the capital.
    Speaker after speaker spoke out about rising energy prices at the London demonstration, including a wide range of workers involved in industrial disputes. Unite members Arshad and Arnold, from Whipps Cross Hospital, joined the protest straight from their picket line, linking their fight against an insulting pay offer from an out-sourced employer to the broader issue of rising living costs.
    The protest also heard from United Voices of the World (UVW) security guard workers at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where staff are currently on strike for equal terms and conditions. One striking worker stressed the importance of their dispute as costs rise, telling the demonstration: "I opened my energy bill the other day and I almost cried – how can I afford that?”
    We also heard from Jaz from Birkbeck University and College Union (UCU) on the 10 days of strike action planned at universities across the UK over devastating cuts to pensions and deteriorating pay and working conditions – one example of many, of workers fighting back against a squeeze on living standards.
    Whilst there were many striking workers among those speaking from the platform and some trade union banners in the crowd, it is clear that there is still some way to go in mobilising the full support of the trade union movement around the campaign. The rally did, however, receive a message from Dave Ward (CWU General Secretary), who noted the importance of the movement having the full backing of the unions as it builds towards a bigger protest later in the year.
    The demonstration also heard from Paula Peters from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), who spoke movingly on the fight for a funded social care system free at the point of need, before warning the Tories that "your time is coming to an end, we're going to evict you".
    Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke last, highlighting the need to "stop the demonisation, and enhance the solidarity" in advance of protests planned in March and April: “Let’s make March even bigger. And in April we need a spring demonstration to fill the streets of London.”

London care workers keep up the fight

 by New Worker correspondent

Care workers and cleaners at the Sage Nursing Home in Golders Green North London walked out in a second wave of strike action from the 4th to 8th February last week.The key workers, who previously went on a three-day strike back in January, are demanding a living wage of £12 per hour, trade union recognition and full pay sick pay and annual leave in line with NHS rates.
    The workers taking action are members of United Voices of the World (UVW), a street union that represents low-paid, predominantly migrant workers in Britain. They’re now also one step closer to trade union recognition with the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) ruling in favour of the workers’ proposed bargaining unit.
     The latest round of strike action came just three weeks after the first, which saw workers host a virtual picket, which was supported by over 400 attendees consisting of union members, officials, care workers and Members of Parliament, all of whom expressed support for the workers’ demands and which was followed up by a lively physical picket outside the care home that same weekend.
    UVW officials have stated the dispute is not only about pay and terms and conditions, but also about the refusal of Sage’s trustees to willingly recognise the union and to adequately deal with grievances relating to discrimination, victimisation and health and safety concerns. The workers’ recent victory at the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), the government body which regulates and rules on applications for trade union recognition, saw the CAC rule in favour of the workers’ proposed bargaining unit. Meaning the workers are one step closer to achieving recognition.
    The CAC ruling, coupled with the promise of further strike action, has seen Sage’s trustees begin to buckle, agreeing for the first time to attend a meeting with the workers to hear the unaddressed grievances.
    Molly de Dios Fisher, a UVW organiser, said: “Despite the arrogant tone in their letter offering a meeting to hear the workers’ concerns, we are hopeful Sage’s trustees will see sense and start fixing the problems at the home. The majority of care workers in the private sector earn below the real living wage, and London, along with the North of England, is the worst place for underpayment. So all eyes are on this dispute. Care workers and their unions know that a win for the Sage Nursing Home workers could be the catalyst needed for a sea change across the sector”.

Victory at the Ministry of Justice!

By New Worker correspondent

 UVW members have overcome the odds winning a ballot for trade union recognition at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) with a whopping 70 per cent vote in favour!

The victory has come just three weeks after the workers won full pay sick pay for Covid-19 related absences and some two months after the death of their colleague, cleaner and UVW member, Emanuel Gomes. Gomes’ death was mired in controversy with reports the MoJ ignored repeated warnings of potential Covid-19 infections and had put workers’ lives at risk through its refusal to provide full pay sick pay or face masks. Something which saw Labour’s Shadow Justice Minister, David Lammy MP, call for an official investigation.

This victory has come despite the MoJ contractor, OCS, subjecting the workers to a vicious campaign of union busting. The cleaners, security guards and porters have voted in favour of recognition of their union, United Voices of the World (UVW), in a statutory ballot administered by the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC). The UVW is a street union founded in 2014 that mainly represents outsourced migrant workers in London and beyond.

And this marks the first time that a non-TUC affiliated union has won a recognition deal in Whitehall.

The workers defied what the union called the OCS’s “shocking union busting” which led to the UVW submitting several complaints to the CAC. They say OCS offered pay rises to UVW activists if they agreed to transfer to other sites while blocking other key union members from attending meetings for the purposes of discussing recognition. The union claims the contractor also refused to provide employees with facemasks which prevented meetings between the workers and the union from taking place - something which saw the UVW lodge a formal complaint with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

The UVW has vowed to continue fighting until the Ministry of Justice ends outsourcing and hires the workers directly on equal terms and conditions with civil servants. To that end the union is going to also bring a case to Employment Tribunal arguing that outsourcing the entirely BAME and migrant workforce on inferior terms and condition to civil servants is a breach of the Equality Act 2010.

The union has also pledged to bring a Judicial Review against the Health and Safety Executive and the Ministry of Justice’s failure to mandate the use of face masks, which the union claims encourages employers to breach health and safety legislation.

Speaking after the result of the ballot was announced, one of the cleaners, Fatima Djalo, said the following: We have won, we have won, we have won. We beat them. We beat their union busting and won our rights. I’m delirious with happiness with this result. Now let’s go for full victory!”

Yet again UVW members have shown what can be done when workers organise and use their collective power to show the boss that they will not be intimidated. The fight isn't over and they still have a long way to go before their members are treated with the full equality and dignity that they deserve, but they are getting closer than ever!

Mrs Mops on Strike

By New Worker correspondent

Another group of workers, this time much less well paid, were also on strike this week. They are the caterers, cleaners and porters at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, west London, who are organised by the United Voices of the World (UVW), a street union which is not in the TUC.

The 200 workers are outsourced by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust to French multinational Sodexo. Their demand that they become NHS employees has become the longest in the history of the NHS and is endorsed by the London Regional Council of the British Medical Association (BMA), the doctors’ trade union.

In addition to this week’s action they have already taken six days of strike action, with more planned for the second week of December and an indefinite strike commencing in January.

UVW organiser Petros Elia said: “This is the first time a group of outsourced works are striking to be brought in-house as NHS employees. We cannot allow for there to be a two-tiered racially divided workforce within the NHS, and we won’t stop striking until that is put to an end. If Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales can do away with outsourcing cleaners, caterers and porters in hospitals, then England can and should as well.”  Amongst their demands are the modest ones of getting vaccinations, improved separate-gender changing facilities, and even access to NHS staff canteens and common rooms.

 Fifty doctors at St. Mary’s have signed an open letter to the Imperial Trust CEO, Tim Orchard, calling on the Trust to meet the workers’ demands and make them direct employees. They say: “Workers employed by Sodexo feel undervalued, demotivated and unsupported and have been left with no option but to vote for industrial action,” adding that: “Sodexo must do more to give them a fairer deal and it is incumbent upon the Trust to help enforce this change.”

One necessarily anonymous striker said: “I work 55 hours a week just to cover my rent. This is my home; I spend more time here than in my house. Yet I am treated like a dog and made to feel like dirt.”

A sympathetic doctor has said that many are paid a mere £8.21 per hour (those below the age of 25, even less), when the London living wage is set at £10.55 per hour. To make matters worse, they are only entitled to the bare minimum statutory sick pay of £94.25 per week. As a result, many report coming in to work whilst ill because they cannot afford the financial penalty of taking a sick day.

The same doctor reports that a security worker at another hospital told him how she had disciplinary action taken against her after leaving her post on the night she became ill with acute appendicitis. Her tiny sick pay meant she was forced to return to a physically demanding job before she had fully recovered from the emergency surgery.

Cleaners Fight Back

By New Worker correspondent

Transport union RMT is stepping up its campaign to secure justice for cleaners working on London Underground (LU). The cleaners are employed by private contractors ABM, the New York-based facilities manager that has a turnover of $6.4 billion from its 140,000 employees. The cleaners have been fighting for parity with directly employed LU workers on a number of fronts including pensions, sick pay and travel. RMT argues that ABM cleaners are being discriminated against when compared with their colleagues. In particular it deplores the inaction of the Labour Mayor of London on the issue.

Speaking at the launch of a strike ballot that opened on Monday, RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said: “It is a disgrace that over two thousand staff who clean London Underground’s trains and stations are treated as second-class citizens in their own workplace. We intend to right that wrong. This large group of staff, employed by the contractors ABM, clean up the human waste, vomit and other detritus and are instrumental in keeping London moving. They do some of the dirtiest jobs round the clock right across the tube network, and without their rapid response and continuing efforts services would be seriously compromised. They should not be subject to this outrageous workplace discrimination. It’s about time Sadiq Khan and LU called their contractors to account. We are calling on Londoners to back their tube cleaners’ fight for justice and as the ballot gets underway we remain available for serious and genuine talks.”

When the five year contract was awarded in 2017 Transport for London piously said it would ensure that cleaners would receive the London Living Wage and would end sub-contracting. An ABM advertisement for one of these jobs seen on the same day as the ballot opened offered precisely that. A full-time night-shift 10pm–5:30am was at the London Living Wage of £10.55 per hour but made no mention of being pensionable.

Also in London, an almost identical strike is underway at St Mary’s Hospital, part of the Imperial College NHS Trust in Paddington, where Alexander Fleming discovered the properties of penicillin; this time organised by the non-TUC union United Voices of the World (UVW). Two hundred cleaners, porters and caterers held the first of a series of strikes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. The outsourced workers are demanding better pay and working conditions from Sodexo, a French multinational that has many such contracts in Britain.

 The workers are paid an hourly rate of £8.21 and even less for those under 25-years-old. This is up to £10,000 less per year than staff of equivalent grade under the NHS Agenda for Change, so the even London Living Wage is a distant dream. Obviously the bosses cannot afford to pay it because profits slumped nine per cent to $745.8 million last year. Sodexo claims it has already agreed to pay the London living wage from April and remained open to “negotiation and arbitration”.

Because workers only have the bare minimum Statutory Sick Pay they have to work on wards when ill, sometimes with flu, because they cannot afford to take time off when sick. They are campaigning for better changing facilities as well as for an end to discrimination that bans outsourced staff using NHS canteens and staff-rooms. As an additional insult, workers are forced to change in mice-ridden, dimly lit and mixed-gender changing rooms located in the hospital’s basement. One striking cleaner said: “I work 55 hours a week just to cover my rent. St Mary’s is my home, I spend more time here than in my house. Yet I am treated like a dog and made to feel like dirt.”

Petros Elia, an organiser for the UVW street union, says: “Sodexo’s contract with Imperial allowed its former CEO, Michel Landel, to enjoy obscene executive pay totalling nearly a million pounds a year and annual bonuses of up to 200 per cent of his salary. Sodexo and St Mary’s can afford to pay our workers in line with NHS rates and we urge them to do so, otherwise the strikes will continue indefinitely.”

At the same time, UVW are fighting similar battles across London. At Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens and St James’s Park, the Royal Parks in central London, park attendants are going on strike at Halloween. Cleaners at the Channel 4 offices on Gray’s Inn Road will be also on strike.

In 2016, the now 3,000-strong union organised the largest cleaners strike in UK history and became the first trade union to force a UK university [the London School of Economics (LSE)] to bring the entirety of its outsourced cleaners in-house. It also organised one of the longest strikes in the history of the City of London, lasting 61 consecutive days. UVW also represents workers in the legal sector, charity sector, cultural sector, architectural sector and even sex workers. Let us hope the results in 2019 are the same as in 2016.