“If Keir Starmer and the incumbent Labour Party can’t even ensure the fair and equal treatment of those in their own house, what does it say about the future of workers across the country?”
The Cleaners and Allied Independent Workers Union (CAIWU) on how their members employed to clean the Houses of Parliament are preparing to fight for pay and jobs in the heart of political power.
The Labour Party won the 2024 election on a platform of change: to rebuild our country so that it ‘once again serves the interests of working people’. But change starts at home. And the Churchill group – the outsourced company recently awarded the contract to clean the Houses of Parliament – is planning to cut staffing by between 30-50 people, leading to mass redundancy and increased workload. With 90% union density, our members are preparing to fight back.
In May 2024, the Houses of Parliament appointed the Churchill Group as their new cleaning contractor. Since then, members of CAIWU have faced chaos and uncertainty: pressure to sign new contracts, changed pay structure and plans to cut the workforce by 25%. Despite promises from the incumbent Government to create real change for working people, Keir Starmer has ridden back on several pledges regarding an end to outsourcing since his election as Labour Party leader in 2019. But a key question remains: if Keir Starmer and the incumbent Labour Party can’t even ensure the fair and equal treatment of those in their own house, what does it say about the future of workers across the country?
We know that outsourcing leads to situations where companies compete to win contracts by offering lower prices, and it’s the workers who pay the consequences. They lose their jobs, and those who remain face increased workloads, leading to physical and mental health issues, while the private sector reaps the rewards. What’s more, it creates a two-tier workforce where those unlucky enough to be outsourced lack the same rights and allowances as their peers.
Lucy Powell, leader of the House of Commons, pledged in an article published by Labour List on May 14 2024 to ‘[improve] Parliament’s culture: enhancing and embedding employment practices, tackling abuse and harassment in Parliament, making parliament a better and safer workplace with further action on exclusions and complaints; considering how Parliament can better reflect our diverse country.’ Yet our members, comprised primarily of migrant workers, are left wondering: why don’t they count?
CAIWU members at the Houses of Parliament said:
“We want to be treated fairly. To have the same benefits as the other workers of the House. What we mean is that if the House gives something to all workers in Parliament, we should receive the same and not something else. But right now we do not get sick pay. We do not get extra for overtime, night and weekend shifts. We do not get holiday pay, and we have not seen a pay rise for a long time. And now we have a new contractor threatening cuts to cleaners who have worked tirelessly in Parliament for decades, including putting themselves at risk to keep others safe during the pandemic.”
“Why they are distressing all of us and putting us through these threats of uncertainty? This company arrived two months ago, we didn’t ask for this change. And we have been working here for 18, 20, 30 years.”
“We used to before have kind relationships, and we all were communicated to in the same way for all areas. We have felt segregated on what is happening inside, they have been dividing the people.”
“I have passed through a TUPE process before and have never been treated this way.”
The Churchill Group also lies at the heart of another dispute with CAIWU’s members. They are responsible for attempting to implement cuts of up to 50% at tech giant Meta’s London offices, and since initiating an official dispute there, 5 of CAIWU’s most outspoken members have been made redundant on spurious grounds, amounting to clear trade union victimisation. As the new Labour government plans to strengthen workers’ rights to collective bargaining, why should a company with Churchill’s track record be anywhere near the centre of policy making in this country?
A CAIWU spokesperson said of the dispute:
“The Churchill Group is, at present, the source of much stress and hardship for our members in workplaces across the capital. At Meta our members have been subject to mass redundancies and trade union victimisation. We were shocked to discover that the same unscrupulous employer is contracted to service the highest law in the land- the Houses of Parliament- but less surprised to hear our members’ experiences of them are much the same as everywhere else. We demand that Keir Starmer put his money where his mouth is and bring cleaners in-house now.”
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