Today low paid cleaners on the Eurostar, working out of St Pancras station, started a 48 hour strike for a London Living Wage. The cleaners, often from African and Eastern European backgrounds, are overworked, under-valued and under paid.

Big Smoke spoke to a few of the strikers on the St Pancras picket line this morning.

One cleaner, Ali, said that “The thing is we’ve been working here for four years and never get sick pay, never get bonuses and never get a good working commission. Everything has increased, everything has gone up. Rents, travel cards, food. We have been struggling to live in London because of our low salary.”

One female cleaner who preferred not to be named said that “We need more money. Our managers want us to clean this whole place for nothing and they don’t want to pay us more.”

Another cleaner, Isaac, told us that he was concerned about the agency the employers had brought in to cover for the strike. He described the tactic as a “devious means” to establish divide and rule as Bulgarian agency workers were shipped in to undermine their demands.

In a letter to Network Rail this week the RMT stated that “It has come to my attention that Initial intends to use “in-house” agency staff to replace their permanent staff in order to try to break the strike. The agency is called AGS and it operates from the same Brunswick House address as Initial and seems to be a subsidiary of the company.

“According to our information, the agency staff are mostly Bulgarian and Romanian. When signing up with the company they are forced to register themselves there and then as Self-Employed with Limited Company status. This results in them having no entitlement to holidays or other UK employment benefits and allows the company to get round the agency worker regulations.

“It is our firm belief that if these allegations are proved correct, vulnerable workers will be exploited by Initial to break the strike. Rather than doing this they should be seeking a negotiated settlement with RMT. We demand an urgent investigation by yourselves into these allegations.”

The lively picket line shouted chants of “Low Pay No Way” and “what do we want? London Living Wage!” and got a good reception from many commuters, whilst others simply hurried by.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said, in typical Bolshevik mode, that “It’s disgraceful that the cleaners who mop up the spilt Bollinger in the St Pancras champagne bar are on poverty pay levels. This scandal is a blight on London’s status as a world class city in the run up to the Olympics and we are determined to force it into the headlines.

He continued that the “RMT wants a swift resolution to this dispute and the union is appalled that Network Rail, a public body still reeling from its own bonus scandal, has not lifted a finger to stop this exploitation by its cleaning contractors.”

The cleaners, who look after the St Pancras facilities served by Eurostar, East Midlands, First Capital Connect and Southeastern High Speed, are on strike for 48 hours from 0600 on Thursday 16th February and for a further 48 hours from 0600 on the 1st March.

While the sparkling new St Pancras development is dominated by five star hotels, Michelin-rated restaurants, champagne bars and high-end retail outlets, the cleaners who look after the station facilities are on poverty wages and minimum terms and conditions in a shocking display of the gap between the haves and have-nots in what is supposed to be a world-class, capital city.

The cleaners have not had a pay rise in four years and have now been offered just 13 pence an hour after they forced through union recognition and brought in RMT to open up negotiations on their behalf. Despite this the employers have apparently refused the opportunity to take the dispute to ACAS. The cleaners are paid £6.76 an hour.

 

2 Comments

  1. Mary Lynch says:

    I support these low paid cleaners. Network Rail, Initial and Eurostar should be ashamed to pay these poverty wages. Give them the Living Wage.

  2. Marc Watkins says:

    Come on guys, surely your cleaners deserve better ! As a regular customer and frequent trvaller, I want to know that employers are acting fairly and ethically. Surely it’s not too much to ask to at least pay the targetted basic London minimum. Would you want to clean up other people’s mess for £6.76 an hour ? I pay my own cleaning and ironing lady more than that – happily !

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