Cleaners and construction workers are fighting for a better deal from their employers. We’d like to urge Camden Unison members, and the general public, to give them their support.
Cleaners at St Pancras International station, who are members of the RMT transport union, will be mounting a 48-hour strike from tomorrow (Thursday) morning at 6.00 AM in support of their fight for the London Living Wage of £8.30 an hour. Their current employer, Initial-Rentokil, which is a sub-contractor for Network Rail, pays an average hourly rate of just £6.76 with some cleaners on as little as £6.50 an hour. The employer has reneged on a previous agreement by the contractor, Carlisle, to review overall pay rates and consider the introduction of occupational sick pay and pension schemes. There will be a lively picket line, most probably outside the station entrance on Midland Road, facing King’s Cross.
Electricians and other building workers have been engaged in a long-running campaign to resist a drastic erosion of pay and conditions at the hands of seven construction contractors determined to tear up the previous national agreement. Pay for these workers could be cut by as much as 35%. Some of them will be holding a protest at the Electrical Contractors’ Association’s annual dinner at the Grosvenor Hotel, Park Lane, Mayfair, W1 from 5.30 PM onwards, but there will also be a local protest in Camden on this Saturday 18 February from 12 noon outside the Morrisons supermarket in Chalk Farm Road, NW1. Morrisons has been chosen because the contractor N G Wilsons, one of the firms attacking the national agreement, is currently under contract by the supermarket chain.