cleaners

The workers, members of local 1251 of the public service union have been striking since January 10th; pay negotiations broke down at the end of November and no new negiotiations were scheduled.

The mainly Polish workers employed by cleaning company Glenn Management to clean offices on the Moulton Park industrial estate, Northampton, had not been paid properly for around four months. However after only one day's strike action they were paid the money that they were owed.

RMT today revealed that Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has agreed that the London Living Wage of £7.20 an hour will become the minimum for some 900 cleaners on former Metronet contracts from the moment TfL take charge of them.

For some cleaners paid only the minimum legal wage of £5.85 it will mean an increase of at least £1.35 an hour - well over 20%.

The action involved striking for 55 minutes of every hour, 24 hours a day in a struggle for better wages and conditions.

After a month of weekly one-day strikes the cleaners, employed by contractor TSI, at the Gare d'Austerlitz have returned to work.

Staff at Neath Port Talbot Hospital, contracted by OCS Ltd, say they have been told their hours are to be cut. Officials from trade union Unison said the 140 staff affected are angry and added an independent report recommended hours should in fact be increased. But a spokesperson for OCS denied there had been a cut in working hours.

Houston janitors ended a month long strike today against the city's five major cleaning companies after reaching a tentative agreement that will guarantee higher wages, more work hours and medical benefits.

Taken from Houston Justice for Janitors

Reports and leaflets on a strike of thousands of cleaning at the state-owned railway in Italy in 2002 which involved rail blockades, slowdowns and strikes.

Leaflets and information on strikes of cleaning workers in Paris and Milan.

The Houston strike is entering it's second week, with around 1,700 janitors on strike. They are demanding a wage increase from $5.30 an hour to $8.50, and health insurance from their employers. The janitors are employed by several different companies, and are organised in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Cleaners at Goldman Sachs have joined the T&G's Justice for Cleaners campaign, and are demanding higher wages. Goldman Sachs, a leading investment bank, will pay it's full time staff an average of £293,000 this year in bonuses alone.

The janitors work for several companies, and have been calling for janitors across the city to join their strike. The janitors are targetting ABM Janitorial Services, GCA Services, OneSource, Sanitors Services of Texas and Pritchard Industries Southwest.

Against a background of several victories in workplace organisation in the US – notably for California cleaners, Boeing workers and Los Angeles health employees - a movement of students and university staff began coming together.

By yesterday lunchtime approximately forty workers were on the picket line for the first of three days of strike action involving around 200 members of staff, members of Unison. They are striking to gain "Agenda for Change" levels of wages, agreed three years ago but ignored by Rentokil Initial since they were due to come into force earlier this year.

An agreement over pay and conditions was made in 2003, due to come into force in April 2006, several other East London hospitals agreed to the deal, only Rentokil at Whipps Cross has failed to honour it. The pay award is roughly equivalent to a £2 per hour raise, for staff who in some cases earn as little as £5.52 per hour, the agreement also included increases in leave entitlement.

The hunger strike is over anti-union practices by their employer UNICCO, the University's cleaning contractor.

The cleaners' union T&G announced the ballot - which will begin on Monday - at a rally today (Friday) in London's Canary Wharf, where the invisible army of 850 cleaners help to maintain some of the world's costliest real estate while being paid a pittance.

Blue Diamond, Britain's largest independent cleaning firm, had been paying about 400 workers £5.05 per hour instead of the agreed £5.50. The three year contract, which started in October last year, was for cleaning the District, Circle, Metropolitan, Hammersmith and City and East London lines.

The action follows a breakdown in negotiations with the parliamentary authorities to increase the wages of cleaners from £5.20 an hour to £6.70. The adult minimum wage is £5.05 an hour.

The strike means MPs and peers will face picket lines as they go to work tomorrow.