June 22nd, 2008
At last Friday’s meeting of SOAS Governing body, the decision was made to ensure that all outsourced contracted workers receive the London Living wage-currently £7.20/hour. At present SOAS cleaners are currently paid £5.52ph, the minimum wage. Although the decision falls short of SOAS Justice for Cleaners Campaign which demanded that cleaning services are brought back in-house, this result is clearly a victory for SOAS cleaners who have campaigned tirelessly since Jan 2007 for a decent living wage.
The SOAS J4C campaign will scrutinise the agreements to ensure that when new contractors are selected SOAS upholds this agreement and also holiday, sick pay and pension rights are in line with the GLA LLW policies.
It’s ironic that the school have claimed this as a victory by blocking our demands to bring it in-house when they wouldn’t even be considering paying LLW if it wasn’t for this campaign and the unearthing of the rotten treatment of the cleaners last December.
