Justice for cleaners working at King's College London
- by: KCL Unison Branch
- recipient: Sir Christopher Geidt (Chairman of the Council, King's College London), Professor Edward Byrne AC (Principal and President, King's College London), United Kingdom
People across the King's College community and beyond have come together in support of our cleaners - many of whom took strike action for the first time in their lives over impossible workloads, chronic understaffing and the threat of a restructure that seeks to cut hours and split shifts and threatens many with redundancy. We believe there are simple ways to make immediate improvements - increase hours, create a procedure for arranging cover and this this will negate the need for a restructure. Please read the full petition letter below for further details and watch this short video: http://roarnews.co.uk/?p=23290
We call on the supporters of our campaign to sign our petition to the College who we believe have the power to effect positive change here and support the cleaners who are a valued part of the College community and whose work is fundamental to the running of the university.
On Thursday 26th and Friday 27th January 2017 cleaners working for contractor Servest (represented by their trade union UNISON) took strike action. The action was the result of an ongoing industrial dispute around staffing levels and a threatened restructure to cut hours and split shifts – both issues which the cleaners felt had not been addressed as part of a collective grievance against Servest (signed by more than 90 UNISON members) and three visits to conciliation service ACAS to seek a resolution to the dispute. As support from the King’s community has grown more of the cleaners have spoken out and damning testimony of their treatment at King’s can be heard here: http://roarnews.co.uk/?p=23290
Although there are many issues that need to be resolved here, UNISON members voted the following to be their immediate demands to secure their jobs and see an immediate change in their unbearable workloads:
1) For an immediate increase in staffing hours to realistically reflect the amount of work needed to clean the university.
2) For the proposed re-structure to be called off
3) An immediate introduction of a cover staff policy to ensure absences are appropriately covered.
We the undersigned support the demands of the cleaners and call on King’s and Servest to take action here to improve their working conditions and bring an end to this dispute.
