McDonnell backs cleaners' fight for rights

Morning Star Monday 24 May 2009

by Paul Haste Industrial Reporter

LABOUR MP John McDonnell on Sunday backed the fight by City cleaners sacked for organising and urged Unite to combat bosses' attempts to victimise its activists.

Privateer cleaning companies have stepped up their attacks on union reps after Unite succeeded in organising migrant workers in central London as part of the Justice for Cleaners campaign.

Mr McDonnell revealed that privateer bosses were "waiting until the headline news about union recognition victories had passed before attacking key union organisers and activists.

"Workers such as those in the Justice for Cleaners campaign may well make gains and a large number thought that they had a victory, but employers haven't waited long before quietly trying to claw back what they had won," he stressed.

The privateer cleaning corporations, subcontracted by wealthy banks, insurance companies and private equity firms to provide workers to clean their plush offices in the City, have been forced to raise poverty wages to the £7.45-an-hour London Living Wage and have conceded union recognition to more than 3,000 workers as a result of the Justice for Cleaners campaign.

But several companies are now attempting to take back the gains by demanding that staff work longer hours - and are stepping up attacks on the newly organised workers by victimising union reps.

Cleaning firm Mitie recently sacked Unite shop steward Edwin Pazmino and several of his colleagues working at the Willis insurance firm's building in the heart of the capital.

Mitie bosses claimed that there was no other option but to move the workers from a part-time evening shift to a full-time night shift - unsociable hours that many of the workers with children were unable to do - before sacking them when they refused.

Another Unite rep Alberto Durango was then suspended by bosses at cleaning firm Lancaster after he supported the Mitie cleaners.

For good measure, Mr Durango's bosses called in immigration agents and the police to arrest him for supposedly using false papers - despite having worked for the company for more than 10 years.

Mr McDonnell pledged to "stand with the workers in their fightback," while demanding action from the government to prevent union activists being victimised for "pursuing their basic rights to organise."

And he urged Unite to defend its members from the bosses' onslaught, pointing out that "the employers have a strategy to combat the union's success - now the union needs a strategy to combat the employers."