On The Streets

 

by New Worker correspondent

Industrial action over pay by traffic wardens in the London borough of Camden began at the end of July. Over a month  later the dispute continues with little sign of movement from bosses.
The wardens are employed by outsourcing company NSL, part of Marston Holdings, which made a £23.1 million profit in the year to May 2022 from its activities which include “ethical” debt collecting, whatever that is.
    The council makes about £40,000 a day from collecting parking fines so the industrial action is blowing a large hole in council finances. These parking fines have sometimes came from ambulances.
At present the wages are £12.70 an hour, with Unison seeking an increase to £15.90, a claim submitted last December. For this they have to work a 42.5 hour week in all weathers.
    While they were classified as key workers during the Covid pandemic, on the grounds they kept spaces clear for NHS workers to come into work, their services are not always met with happy smiles from grateful motorists.
    NSL say that the Unison claim is unrealistic, but the 25 per cent increase they are seeking is from a very low base.
    Branch secretary Liz Wheatley said, despite NSL’s claims, the present offer is effectively on a below inflation 7.5 per cent. NSL’s profits increased from £5.8 million in 2021 to £9.2 million last year. The boss’s salary went up from £258,000 to £412,000 which is a 60 per cent increase or to £221 an hour.
Camden Council have not responded to Unison demands to put pressure on NSL to make a settlement they can clearly afford. Unison also demands that they are brought back in house, a promise the Labour council made five years ago. The Council pays £30 hourly to NSL for the workers but the wardens get less than half that so the savings are obvious.
    In contrast to in-house employee who work 36 hours with 25 days holidays and sick pay NSL workers only 20 days holiday and paid for the first three days off sick. Pension provision is naturally much worse. Working on rest days, which for many is a necessity brings in only an extra £15.

On the street;...

by New Worker correspondent

Outsourcing was one of the issues exercising the security guards employed by Bidvest Noonan belonging to the small street union, the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) at University College London (UCL) who joined in the massive day of strike action on Wednesday 1 February.
    In addition to a demand for a £15.00 hourly rate (which is the equivalent to that paid in 2002), they are seeking an end to outsourcing, and union recognition. In October UCL attempted to break a IWGB strike by employing subcontracting workers on a lower rate of pay in an attempt to break the last IWGB strike, despite running a £90 million yearly surplus.
This was condemned by University and College Union and the IWGB as an intimidatory strike breaking tactic and as a violation of UCL’s theoretical commitment to parity on account of these workers receiving lower rates of pay.
    The IWGB states that commitment to parity of terms and conditions with directly employed staff was won following IWGB strike action in 2019, while this resulted in improved pay, pension contributions and sick pay and annual leave entitlements full equality has not been achieved.
    Matteo Tiratelli, UCU’s Anti-Casualisation Officer at UCL added: “Outsourcing creates terrible working conditions for workers on the lowest grades at UCL, yet UCL management is determined to keep up this discriminatory practice. It is one of several ways in which working conditions are being worsened across the board. All staff at UCL are seeing our pay fall behind inflation, our jobs casualised and rights stripped away, and it is sadly not just staff, but students who are paying the price.”
    Yusuf Nur, a striking security guard, says: “I have young children and on the poverty pay I receive as an outsourced worker I am struggling to support them. I’ve been left with no choice but to strike - it’s the only way we can make our voices heard. After bullying, mistreatment and consistent basic errors with paying us our wages and pensions from Bidvest Noonan and neglect from UCL, we must fight for better conditions for each other and our families.”
The same union also claims victory in one of the north London borough of Barnet, which for two decades was held up as model of economical outsourcing by the Tory controlled council, who outsourced just about anything that was not nailed down.
    Now under Labour control, 330 affected workers presently employed by outsourcing multinational Capita, (or Crapita to Private Eye readers) will be brought back in-house from 1 April.
    2012 saw the Tory council hand over much of its services to Capita on decade-long contracts. Capita lived up to its nickname, with a decade of controversies including a multi-million-pound fraud and contracts running vastly over budget.
    After the May elections Labour won control of the council, and although the contracts had already been due to end next year, the council has fast-tracked plans to bring some services back in house.
    John Burgess, the union’s Barnet local government branch secretary declared: “This is good news for staff, good news for residents and good news for the services. I welcome the decision and look forward to welcoming back all the services back into Barnet Council where they all belong”.
    He pointed out that after a decade of campaigning, and a start to bringing services in-house: “there are still many issues to address for our members who are being TUPE’d”.
    “These include workplace inequalities such as staff being paid differently for the same role. Barnet UNISON is already seeking discussions with the council about harmonisation of the terms and conditions of the TUPE’d workforce”.
    Another strike involving outsourced workers is taking place in the north-west London borough of Hounslow whose most lovable of workers, Parking Enforcement Officers, started a strike which could last until 5 March.
    Employed by giant outsourcer Serco who last declared profits of £309.9 million, they are fighting for decent pay.
    Neighbouring boroughs Ealing and Brent councils recently conceded a pay rise after strike action. Civil enforcement officers and CCTV operators in Ealing received a 9 per cent rise pay increase back dated to April 2022 with low paid new starters getting 11.94 per cent, with another eight per cent from next April, and extra annual leave entitlement. In comparison, in Brent, workers are getting a total increase of pay rise of 10.7 per cent from last April with nine per cent to come in April.
    Unite’s general secretary, Sharon Graham said: “Serco and Hounslow council’s refusal to address the scourge of low pay is shameful. The truth is that the London Living Wage is not enough to live on. Serco is hugely wealthy. The Council and its outsourcer have the ability to pay workers more.
    “The strike will inevitably mean that parking restrictions across the borough will fall apart. Bosses need to realise the workers have Unite’s total support.”

The fight-back in London

Bexley

In the south London borough of Bexley another group of binmen are making progress in their dispute over pay and working conditions.
    Talks between contractors Countrystyle Recycling and Unite are taking place at conciliation service ACAS, which has enabled Unite to call off a planned three week strike which was set to continue until Friday 19th August.
    Unite acting national officer Clare Keogh said: “Following extensive negotiations held at Acas, sufficient progress was made to allow Unite to suspend strike action.
    “It is hoped that during further in-depth negotiations the remaining outstanding issues can be resolved and a satisfactory resolution to the dispute reached.” But the union warned that if the resulting offer is unacceptable strike action will resume on Saturday 20th August.
    The 100 binmen involved have already been on strike in the middle of last month, Countrystyle Recycling had taken over the contract in October.
    Unite accuses Countrystyle of offering “a below-inflation pay deal” to scrap a long-standing “job and finish” clause in their contracts. Regional officer Tabusam Ahmed added: “Our members are rightly asking for a pay rise that keeps up with rocketing prices. In response, Countrystyle is trying to punish them by scrapping a long-standing agreement”.

London School of Hygiene &Tropical Medicine 

Another long standing dispute involving cleaners and other support staff is that at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine led by the small street union, the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB). The largely migrant workforce have recently won a long battle to become directly employed by the School, which is part of the University of London. However they face other battles because while the union represents the majority of support workers the School still refuses to recognise the union.
    The IWGB workers have long suffered under a two-tier system which means they have fewer rights and worse terms and conditions than directly employed colleagues. One example was that during the pandemic they were not entitled to proper sick pay.
    Last August the School finally agreed to bring the support workers in-house and end the discrimination, but this has yet to be fully implemented.
    However the devil is in the detail, as the IWGB branch soon found that Management goodwill was short-lived. They objected to actual workers, rather than IWGB officials attending meetings, and the approach to these regular meetings with the trade union was shocking. No agendas were prepared and the vital issue of (very low) pay was not to be discussed.
    In March the School’s Director said that he would only stick to the letter of TUPE regulations and would not bring workers onto even the lowest grade on the School’s pay scale of £11.30 an hour.
    IWGB demands that its members, who presently get £11.05 per hour, which is below the lowest grade on the university pay scale, are brought onto the School’s Pay Grade 3 (£14.50), the grade that similar staff are on. Instead the School is negotiating pay with Unison, which does not represent the workers and has ignored IWGB’s grading demands.
    In April a lively protest about these issues outside the School, at which a petition was handed in, was met by Management calling the police, who speedily decided there was no cause for action.
    Management soon took revenge. After the protest four workers were suspended by the subcontractor Samsic for taking part in the protest, with others later suspended for taking part in union meetings, IWGB thinks this may have been at the School’s orders and the union is now submitting a tribunal detriment and blacklisting claim against Samsic.
    The IWGB strongly refutes Management claims that the April protest was violent and intimidating. It also complains that it is denying the union details of their plans to bring them in-house.
    Strike action finally took place last month, with a promise of more to come. Before the strike workers faced repeated illegal attempts to intimidate workers including threats to cancel annual leave already booked.
    During July’s strike Samsic made use of agency workers to cover the strikers’ shift. This, IWGB say “is a criminal offence, under Regulation 7 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Business Regulations 2003”. Two IWGB officials entered the foyer of the building to report this to the security manager and to flag that this was a serious criminal offence and should be stopped immediately. The security manager called the police.
    LSHTM management claims, without evidence that the IWGB has “verbally abused and threatened at work” the reception staff. However 126 scientists, including past and present members of staff, support the action and accuse Management of tarnishing the reputation of the School. They demand that management meet “essential workers’ demands of fair treatment and pay” and “the immediate annulation of disciplinary sanctions faced by some workers engaged in union activities and campaigns.”
    One of those supporting the workers is Kings College London lecturer in global health and School graduate, Sabah Boufkhed, who says: “Our academic and global health community has taken a stand with less privileged colleagues who have organised themselves to address their poor labour conditions. We know from the research we do that these conditions are a major determinant of health. I hope that LSHTM’s senior management will immediately address the situation and make a step towards addressing causes of health and social inequities within their own premises.”

Battersea

South of the river, in Battersea, another union recognition battle is being fought by another small street union. This is at the Latchmere Leisure Centre in Battersea, where the United Voices of Workers (UVW) have applied to the Central Arbitration Committee for statutory recognition.
    Here the largely Bolivian cleaners, are demanding to be paid the London Living Wage instead of what they get which is just a few pennies above the lower Minimum Living Wage. They also complain that they currently only get the legal minimum statutory sick pay and they are demanding a full sick pay scheme.
    Juan Jiménez Yanez, one of the cleaners and UVW members, said: “We, the workers of Latchmere Leisure Centre, are almost on the minimum wage and we are asking for a pay rise. We want the London Living Wage (LLW) and we ask for the support of all our fellow workers to support us in our cause. Keep up the fight comrades!”
The centre is owned by Wandsworth Council, who pay £3.7 million a year to Places for People Leisure Management (PPLM), to run its leisure centres on their behalf. The lifetime cost of the contract with PPLM is £22 million

    PPLM’s parent company, Places for People (PfP) is actually one of the UK’s largest private housing associations with more than £4.9 billion in assets and is landlord over 220,000 owned or managed homes in addition to managing 108 leisure facilities across the country.
    PfP made a pre-tax profit of nearly £80 million last year with £700 million in reserve, yet only pays cleaners at Latchmere five pence more than the £9.50 minimum wage.
    Labour won the local elections in Wandsworth this year ending years of Tory rule in the borough. And Simon Hogg, the leader of Wandsworth’s new Labour Council, says: “there is no moral justification for paying people less than the LWW, especially at a time when household bills are going through the roof and families are struggling. Any company that tenders for a council contract will need to guarantee that their workforce is paid the LLW as a minimum.”
    In September 2023 the leisure centre management contract will be renewed, but UVW point out that with the present high inflation this does not help the present situation and is demanding that the UVW to be recognised as the cleaners’ union.
    It is about time that all of Britain’s unions unite and force Labour councils and other public bodies to bring essential workers in-house and cut out parasitical middlemen who do nothing except collect dividends.

West End

On Tuesday some of Britain’s less essential workers start balloting for strike action. They work for Grosvenor Casinos in London. Despite helping to redistribute money from people with more money than sense to their bosses they are being offered a below inflation pay cut.
    Their union, Unite, points out that Grosvenor’s owner, the Rank Group, made a £40 million profit last year but is only offering to increase the wages of its lowest paid staff to the bare London Living Wage of £11.20 an hour. At the same time staff paid more than that are only being offered a 4.3 per cent increase when the real inflation rate (RPI) is 11.8 per cent.
    The rates of pay are little compensation given that much of the work involves unsociable hours and late night working.
    Unite national officer Dave Turnbull said: “If workers vote for strike action it will inevitably cause huge disruption across the company’s operations but this dispute is entirely of Grosvenor Casinos own making. Even at this late stage strike action can still be averted if Grosvenor Casinos returns to the negotiating table and makes a realistic pay offer to our members”. The New Worker is not giving odds on the ballot result.

London Workers’ Notes

by New Worker correspondent

In the good old days of the 1970s when trade union membership was twice what it is today, Tories frequently complained that trade unions would go on strike at the drop of a hat to get a pay rise. With few exceptions at present, trade unions are equally active but their energies seem to be almost entirely devoted to attempting to save jobs or prevent wage reductions that bosses are attempting to impose under the cover of the COVID-19 crisis.

Waltham Abbey

Essential supplies of Brussels sprouts, port, cranberry sauce and Stilton in and around London could be at risk as a result of a planned Christmas strike. Twelve drivers, employed by Harper & Guy Consulting Ltd at Sainsbury’s Waltham Abbey distribution centre, have voted unanimously for strike action in protest at being paid £12,000 less per year than those directly employed by Sainsbury’s. As a result, deliveries to about 100 Sainsbury’s stores in London and the south east will be severely affected during the six days of strikes before and after Christmas.
    The driver’s union, Unite, said that Sharper & Guy had point blank refused to discuss the pay claim for 2020 and parity pay.
    Regional officer Paul Travers thundered: “What we have here is one of the most flagrant cases of pay parity injustice that I have been involved with, as our members are getting paid £12,000-a-year less than their counterparts employed directly by Sainsbury’s doing the same job at the Waltham Abbey depot.
    “You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to work out that 12 times £12,000 is nearly £150,000-a-year and that someone is benefiting from that figure – and it is definitely not our members.
    “Ironically, Harper & Guy Consulting Ltd has pay parity with Sainsbury’s drivers for all the agency drivers it employs at this depot which just adds insult to injury for our 12 members who are being treated appallingly.”
    The union’s national officer for road transport and logistics, Matt Draper, added: “This dispute further puts the spotlight on Sainsbury’s desire to pursue its misguided ‘race to the bottom’ strategy.” He also pointed out: “We have opposed the introduction of these lower paid ‘new generation’ contracts within Sainsbury’s. The way these drivers at Waltham Abbey are being contemptuously treated shows Sainsbury’s is implicated at arm’s length in the actions Zero Hours–Zero Benefits of Harper & Guy Consulting Ltd.
    “Sainsbury’s needs to remember a ‘key worker’ is not just for the present COVID-19 emergency, but for the long-term as a contented workforce improves productivity.”

London Airport

Tuesday saw workers at Britain’s main airport, London Heathrow, who are directly employed by Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL) mount a socially distanced picket as part of a long-running dispute over savage wage cuts imposed on the workforce through a brutal fire and rehire programme. In addition, an advertising van toured the area condemning “Heathrow’s super-rich shareholders are jetting off with workers’ wages”, in which Heathrow’s chief executive officer John Holland Kaye was portrayed as the “Heathrow Grinch CEO is stealing workers’ wages”.
    These actions come after workers voted by 84 per cent in opposition to fire and rehire policies that will result some workers suffering permanent pay cuts of up to £8,000 per annum or a quarter of their take-home pay.
    The targeted strike action involves workers who are vital to the operation of the airport and includes: firefighters, engineers, campus security, baggage operations, central terminal operations, landside and airside operations.
     Unite warns that despite the union representing thousands of workers who will still be at work, HAL has refused to discuss its contingency plans for keeping the airport open and as a result the union has raised serious safety concerns.
     Unite regional co-ordinating officer Wayne King said: “Workers face losing their homes and surrendering their cars due to the savage cuts being imposed on them.”
    The union notes that the pay cuts are all about greed and not needed: “HAL and John Holland Kaye are guilty of using the COVID pandemic as cover for forcing through long-held plans to cut pay. If this was genuinely about the pandemic any cuts would have been temporary.”
    He added that: “Unite have tried to negotiate temporary pay cuts but Heathrow were simply not interested” and cast serious doubts on bosses claims that “under its ‘contingency plans’ Heathrow can operate safely but despite seeking the evidence to prove this, that information has not been forthcoming, raising serious questions about how the airport will operate during the strikes”.
    Three further days of strikes are planned before Christmas.

Camden

Amongst the workers most affected by the COVID-19 crisis are casual workers on zero-hours contracts. Just one example of this comes from the north London borough of Camden, where staff who have given years of service at the Kentish Town Sports Centre, which is presently closed, have been told they will not be receiving any furlough pay.
    The centre is managed by notorious contractor Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL) on behalf of the Labour-run council.
    An investigation by the local Camden New Journal newspaper discovered that staff working for five or more years were still on zero-hours contracts. One was Deena Mostafa, who has in the sales and reception team for five years, who had her weekly pay packet stopped in September. She said: “I am down £600 a month. We don’t qualify for things like free school meals, and life has come to a standstill.” This was because casual staff did receive furlough support based on their average weekly hours in March, but this is not the case now.
    Another member of staff added that: “We have been struggling. Due to this second lockdown I was hoping the furlough would continue, but they said only full-time will receive it. We are all casuals working full-time hours. It’s unfair. Most of my colleagues been working there for years but treated as if it didn’t matter.”
    Mostafa added: “What annoys us is that GLL haven’t even acknowledged we are staff. It is like we do not exist. It is unethical to leave people in a position like this. The only reason to keep us on these contracts is to save money and to be able to get rid of us when they want to.
    “They say they have no obligation to give us hours, and we have no obligation to take them – but that’s simply not true. We are obligated, as we need to earn a wage.”
    A local Unison branch organiser said the union was on the ball, and suggested the contract should be brought in-house to put staff on the same terms and protection as council staff , adding that the case “is another example of why zero hours should be scrapped. The council’s official stance is their contractors should not be using them – so this needs to become an iron-clad policy.”
    A Camden Council spokesman meekly said GLL would furlough employees who had a role to return to but that: “Very sadly this has meant some of the roles previously occupied by GLL staff on flexible hours have been reduced, meaning these staff will not have roles to return to.
    “The government must now provide councils and our partners in the charity sector with the necessary funding to support residents who lose their work back into employment or training.”
    GLL, which is a ‘not-for-profit’ spinoff from Greenwich Council, has form in this area. Founded in 1993, GLL runs leisure centres in more than a dozen London boroughs, as well as libraries in Bromley and Greenwich. It has over 50 local authority contracts and employs 14,000 staff nationally – with about 70 per cent of these workers on casual contracts. The ‘not-for-profit’ bit means it does not make pay-outs to shareholders, but to compensate it pays high salaries to senior managers.
    It was recently forced into a union recognition agreement by Unite at the south London borough of Lewisham. Unite regional officer, Onay Kasab, said: “Local authority leisure services, whoever the providers, face dire financial circumstances. It is a matter of public record that we want services in-sourced,” adding: “But where services are outsourced, the minimum requirement must be that trade unions are recognised.”
    GLL modestly describes itself as “an award winning charitable social enterprise which cares for its staff and local communities alike”. As can be seen from events in Camden, the reality is quite different.
    In the early stages of the pandemic it ‘generously’ offered its library and leisure centre workers across London an offer of six-months unpaid leave in return for the promise of a job when they returned. At the time Unite said it would subsequently lead to “drastic” cutbacks in work offered to those on casual contracts.
    The union accused the company of being in “real financial trouble” and said the “simple and straight forward” answer was for the service to go back into public ownership.
    “Local authorities must not wait until the company goes bust with all the unemployment and disruption this will cause to council services. Instead, they must act now to save jobs and much-appreciated public amenities.”

Camden wardens walkout

By New Worker correspondent

Striking traffic wardens marched to Camden Town tube station over the weekend as part of a fortnight of industrial action for higher pay in the north London borough. The traffic wardens work for NSL, the company that runs Camden’s parking enforcement services. NSL pays its company directors over £250 per hour but is refusing to pay the traffic wardens the £11.15 per hour that their union, Unison, has been fighting for over the last few months. The wardens are currently on £10 per hour, which is 20p less than the ‘London Living Wage’.

Over 100 Unison parking wardens went on strike for two weeks in the run-up to Christmas following the rejection of an NSL deal that the union said was worse than their first offer. Camden Unison branch secretary Liz Wheatley said: “There will be a significant loss of revenue for Camden Council and NSL. It’s a busy time of year for parking wardens, with all the dashing around and Christmas shopping. The parking service last year made £26 million profit for Camden, and NSL made £2m profit. That’s all parking services.

 “The top company director had a pay rise of over half-a-million pounds in the last two years. This is double what it would cost to increase the pay of every traffic warden to £11.15 an hour. They clearly have the money but aren’t prepared to end low pay.”

NSL was bought by Marston Holdings in January 2017. Marston works for courts and local authorities across the country collecting parking fines, council tax and rent arrears, and congestion charge contraventions.

The company claimed that: “NSL has made an improved pay offer which will ensure all of our employees are paid in excess of the London Living Wage for the next three years. We are disappointed by Unison’s decision to continue with industrial action, however we will take steps to ensure that a parking enforcement service is provided to the London Borough of Camden during this period.”

Traffic wardens threaten action

 By New Worker correspondent

 In the north London borough of Camden traffic wardens have voted overwhelmingly to take strike action over pay and claims they are constantly monitored by bosses having to log their location every five minutes.

  They are employed by contractor NSL (the former National Car Parks) which is hired by over 60 local authorities and ironically has Investors in People accreditation. 

 However the Civil Enforcement Officers, to give them their Sunday name, have a grim time.

A majority of them are black and suffer racist and physical abuse from irate motorists. The local branch of Unison said they are subject to “invasive” level of checks. One warder told the Camden New Journal: “If you want to go to the toilet, you have to log it. If you are going to buy water, you have to log it. If you want to sit down to rest your feet, you have to log it. If you forget, it’s a disciplinary.” The bosses say this is to protect the workers from attacks and to confirm time and place of penalties.

 Another warden was hospitalised after being attacked by a chain used to lock motor cycles. 

  Last year the council received £26 million in “surplus” from parking tickets, which is ring-fenced to be spent on transport projects. Little of this goes to the warders. They presently earn £10 an hour, short of the London Living Wage of £10.20.

  Speaking on behalf of the local Unison branch chair Liz Wheatley, said: “In today’s society it is pretty scandalous, especially in a borough like Camden that professes to have ethical employment practises and ethical procurement, that we can end up with a predominantly black, low-paid workforce forced to have to take strike action every single time they want to try and get a pay increase.”

 Earlier this year, in the neighbouring borough of Hackney 40 traffic wardens in a pay dispute with their employers APOCA Parking went of a 48 hour strike. This was over demands for a five percent pay increase. They too were only on the London Living Wage. At the time Unite official said “These workers, out in all weathers, only get the LLW uprate each year. So instead of being the minimum that employers should pay, the LLW becomes the maximum” before adding “We are arguing that each April there should be proper pay negotiations – with the aim of taking workers above the LLW”.

The fact that the minimum wage has become the maximum is exactly what the New Communist Party warned about when in the early days of the Blair government it was offered as a crumb to the unions by New Labour.