City cleaners hit the streets this Friday
solidarity | 18.03.2009 23:32 | Workers' Movements
This Friday 20 March at 13.00 hours, cleaners sacked by contractor Mitie at global insurance brokers the Willis Group will be demonstrating again outside the Willis Building, 51 Lime Street London EC3 7DQ (tube: Liverpool Street or Bank). Their fight back against union busting redundancies is an inspiration to all in these times of recession brought on by the City itself. Come and show your support!
The four cleaners are all members of Unite the union and their building formed part of the Justice for Cleaners campaign. They were made redundant because they could not switch from a part-time evening to full-time night shift. Close to a deal, they then proposed to go in to work 15 minutes after the time Mitie wanted them to start. But this the company refused.
Cleaning companies have been trying to enforce this change to night shifts in a number of key locations in London in order to safeguard profits just as cleaners win the Living Wage, as was the case at Willis. They trust that workers won't fight back, and those who can't adapt to night working will just leave, thus reducing the wage bill and increasing the workload of those who remain. Incipient union organisation also suffers as key activists seem to suffer especially, in this case shop steward Edwin Pazmiro and his three colleagues.
Please come and support, and bring anything visible (banners etc) and anything noisy!
This new protest follows a week of gathering support for their fight at community and trade union meetings, including at a packed Womens Day celebration at SOAS. Meanwhile Latin American community and solidarity organisations have meanwhile written to the union urging them to get behind the workers.
Sacked shop steward Edwin Pazmino revealed that the company's lawyers had sent letters to each of the workers, accusing them of "libelling" bosses by insisting that they had been unfairly sacked and demanding that they "stop involvement in further protests."
But he defiantly declared that "this attempt at intimidation will not stop us."
"We are determined to fight the company to the end and we will continue to demonstrate to pressure Willis to persuade their cleaning contractor to find a solution," vowed Mr Pazmino.
Domingas, another sacked Mitie cleaner, explained that she believed the privateer had deliberately tried to force the workers to work night shifts, knowing that their refusal to make such a dramatic change to their working lives could be used to fire them.
"I have four children in school. How can I be expected to suddenly start working all night and not be there for my children in the morning?" she asked.
"Mitie did this because we won our campaign to raise our pay to £7.20 an hour from the minimum wage of just £5.73," Domingas added.
Source for quotes:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/britain/cleaners_defy_bully_bosses
Contact:
Williscleaners4justice@live.co.uk. Messages of support welcome.
For general info write to: latin_americanworkers@hotmail.com
Cleaning companies have been trying to enforce this change to night shifts in a number of key locations in London in order to safeguard profits just as cleaners win the Living Wage, as was the case at Willis. They trust that workers won't fight back, and those who can't adapt to night working will just leave, thus reducing the wage bill and increasing the workload of those who remain. Incipient union organisation also suffers as key activists seem to suffer especially, in this case shop steward Edwin Pazmiro and his three colleagues.
Please come and support, and bring anything visible (banners etc) and anything noisy!
This new protest follows a week of gathering support for their fight at community and trade union meetings, including at a packed Womens Day celebration at SOAS. Meanwhile Latin American community and solidarity organisations have meanwhile written to the union urging them to get behind the workers.
Sacked shop steward Edwin Pazmino revealed that the company's lawyers had sent letters to each of the workers, accusing them of "libelling" bosses by insisting that they had been unfairly sacked and demanding that they "stop involvement in further protests."
But he defiantly declared that "this attempt at intimidation will not stop us."
"We are determined to fight the company to the end and we will continue to demonstrate to pressure Willis to persuade their cleaning contractor to find a solution," vowed Mr Pazmino.
Domingas, another sacked Mitie cleaner, explained that she believed the privateer had deliberately tried to force the workers to work night shifts, knowing that their refusal to make such a dramatic change to their working lives could be used to fire them.
"I have four children in school. How can I be expected to suddenly start working all night and not be there for my children in the morning?" she asked.
"Mitie did this because we won our campaign to raise our pay to £7.20 an hour from the minimum wage of just £5.73," Domingas added.
Source for quotes:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/britain/cleaners_defy_bully_bosses Contact:
Williscleaners4justice@live.co.uk. Messages of support welcome. For general info write to:
latin_americanworkers@hotmail.com
solidarity
e-mail:
Williscleaners4justice@live.co.uk