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| picket outside Kensington & Chelsea town hall |
By New Worker correspondent
Cleaners at Kensington & Chelsea
Council, HealthCare America and the Ministry of Justice, at five different
sites, started three days of strike action on 7th August to demand
the London living wage, currently set at
£10.20 per hour, and decent sick pay.
The action was
organised by the United Voices of the World (UVW), a small independent union
that represents low-paid, predominantly migrant workers in Britain. Although
small, the UVW has already won the living wage, sick pay and holiday pay for
cleaners all over London, including at the Daily
Mail, Sotheby’s and the London School of Economics (LSE).
On the day the
new strike started, Kensington and Chelsea Council announced that it would be
bringing all outsourced contracts with Amey back in-house. Senior local Labour
Party sources in Kensington & Chelsea told the New Worker that the council is rapidly implementing huge changes
in order to stave off the threat from Labour and shake of the “Grenfell
effect”. The Tories lost the parliamentary seat for the first time ever in
2017, and both the chief executive and council leader resigned after Grenfell.
They also said similar changes were taking place in Wandsworth, where there is
also a growing challenge from Labour.
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