The actions are happening because of a few reasons. There are several major cleaning contractors in the City of London. Between them, they clean the majority of floor space in corporations and public sector buildings throughout the City and Canary Wharf.
The overwhelming majority of their workforce consist of migrants from Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. There are many challenges in unionising this workforce , the largest being that many workers are undocumented and risk reprisal from the employer. It is also a very fragmented workforce; there many languages that are spoken, many different shift patterns and small clusters of workers spread throughout the city.
In late 2006/ early 2007 , the TGWU forced several of the major cleaning contractors including ISS, Mitie, Lancaster, & Greencrest to sign a union recognition agreement. After a year of negotiations it became obvious that they would not sign voluntarily. The agreement meant that the cleaning contractor and their clients were committed to:
1.negotiate with the trade union for the pay and conditions of their workforce.
2.allow access on site to trade union organizers and officials to meet with workers during the workers’ paid time.
3.recognize the union shop steward (delegate) on site.
4.implement ‘fairshare’..this means that if the trade union yields a raise and pay and conditions on site, then workers who have not become a member of the trade union must pay a percentage (I think its 80%) in ‘bargaining fees’ to the trade union.

So why are we in dispute with the companies again?
Well…there are still a few contractors in the city who still haven’t signed the agreement at all. They are: Pall Mall, McClellands, & Sodexho. So we need them to sign up.
Then there are the contractors who have signed up but aren’t implementing the agreement properly. The most aggressive of which is ‘Lancaster’ who are dodging the union on access and recognising shop stewards. Lancaster is arguably the most unethical cleaning contractor in London. In mid 2006 Lancaster cleaners at MERRIL LYNCH were told that there were going to a training session off site. They were taken to another location and raided by home office officials..and taken to detention centres.
And then there’s the contractors who still aren’t paying decent wages, sick pay and holiday pay. These include companies who have and have not signed the agreement.
So , as you can see…..we have a lot of work to do before the exit strategy kicks in on this campaign.
Now here is the schedule of demonstrations this week. We are going to start by hitting PALL MALL at the RBS building on Liverpool St, At the end of the week we start on LANCASTER .
If you can only come to one demonstration this week please make it the THURSDAY demonstration at 4pm in front of RBS 250 Liverpool st Broadgate.

Schedule:

4pm Monday May 12
3.50 meet in front of Liverpool St Station…moving onto RBS. 250 Bishopsgate, London, UK, EC2M

1pm Tuesday May 13
12.50 meet in front of Liverpool St Station…moving onto RBS. 250 Bishopsgate, London, UK, EC2M

4pm Tuesday May 13
3.50 meet in front of Liverpool St Station…moving onto RBS. 250 Bishopsgate, London, UK, EC2M

7.30am Wednesday May 14
Picketing the Ethical Business Corporation Conference Riverbank Park Plaza Hotel: 18 Albert Embankment , London SE1 7TJ

1pm Wednesday May 14
12.50 meet in front of Liverpool St Station…moving onto RBS. 250 Bishopsgate, London, UK, EC2M

4pm Wednesday May 14
3.50 meet in front of Liverpool St Station…moving onto RBS. 250 Bishopsgate London, UK, EC2M

1pm Thursday May 15
12.50 meet in front of Liverpool St Station…moving onto RBS. 250 Bishopsgate, London, UK, EC2M

4pm Thursday May 15 (MAJOR DEMO)
3.50 meet in front of Liverpool St Station…moving onto RBS. 250 Bishopsgate, London, UK, EC2M

1pm Friday May 16th
12.50 meet at St Pauls Tube (Gresham St Exit)..move on to location nearby.