IWW cleaners at John Lewis going on strike

Best of luck to them!

Traffic wardens at contractors NSL in Camden will also be on strike shortly before that, tomorrow and Thursday, against low pay:
http://camdenunison.org.uk/2012/07/03/nsl-camden-unison-on-the-brink-of-action/

Come and show solidarity with the IWW John Lewis Cleaners' Strike Picket on Friday and Demo on Saturday!

On Friday 13th July the IWW Cleaners' Branch will start the picket line for the cleaners at John Lewis at 5:30am. This will be the first strike in the history of John Lewis!

Then at 1pm we will have a big rally.

On Saturday 14th July we will have a mass demonstration at 3pm at the John Lewis flagship store at 300 Oxford Street. Any one that is not in London can organize pickets of solidarity in their local John Lewis branches.

All come and stand in solidarity please. The national press will be there. This will be a huge victory for cleaners and precarious workers all over the country! Get involved!

London IWW Cleaners' and Allied Trades Industrial Union.

Are there any planned actions elsewhere, does anyone know?

NLSF solidarity statement:

http://solfed.org.uk/?q=north-london/solidarity-with-the-london-john-lewis-cleaners-strike

The North London Solidarity Federation would like to extend our deepest solidarity to the John Lewis cleaners engaged in a struggle to secure the London Living Wage. By exposing John Lewis' overt failure to live up to its proclaimed co-operative model, the cleaners have shown that company schemes are not the way to secure a decent wage. Instead, only collective struggle can force bosses to provide us with decent working conditions and respect on the job.

Members of North London SolFed will make every effort to turn out to support the cleaners at their upcoming strike and will encourage all our friends and contacts to do the same.

London Living Wage for All Cleaners! No Cuts to Hours! No Speed Up!

Any personal reports from the picket line? Or, even better yet, from a striking cleaner?

Thanks for the links Felix.

Heard that strike actions been called off due to a new mgmt offer, anyone know the details?

Bump on that last post, anyone have any sharable details?

Amazing :)

Congratulations to the cleaners! :D

'There's just no more money I'm afraid, you'll all be laid off' 'There's just n-' *STRIKE* 'Here's a 10% rise and no redundancies'.

well done!

So, this relaunch as IWGB. What's that about then?

PRESS RELEASE

CLEANERS SUCCESS AT JOHN LEWIS HERALDS

A REBIRTH OF INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM

The dispute of cleaners at the John Lewis Partnership’s flagship at Oxford Street store has ended with significant success for the workers who took strike action in July.

The members of the IWW Cleaners' Branch announced a resounding mandate from its members to take strike action, the strike ballot had an 80% turnout with 90% voting in favour of industrial action.

The cleaner took strike action on 13th July and on 20th July in protest at a planned cuts in jobs and hours, a further strike set for Thursday 26th July as the Olympic Torch passed the store was cancelled following fresh talks with the cleaning contractor ICM (Compass Group) and the facilities company MML hired by John Lewis Partnership.

Our union has reached an agreement with the employers that members have voted to accept that has halted the compulsory cuts in jobs and hours for the cleaners. Chris Ford Secretary of the cleaners union Industrial Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) said: ‘First 50% of cleaners hours were to be cut, then nearly a third of the work-force were to be made redundant, now after a courageous struggle not a single cleaner at John Lewis Oxford street will be forced to loose their job. In an age of austerity this is no small achievement’.

In addition to defending their jobs, the cleaners at John Lewis turned the situation of cuts around to one where they have secured a 10% pay increase backdated to the start of the contract in March 2012 with increased shift allowances. Hours of work have been re-organised to reduce the excessive shifts cleaners’ workers, some being available for work during unpaid breaks.

Whilst considering the pay and allowance increases a significant step forward from the £6.08 per-hour cleaners earned the IWGB consider it still a stepping-stone towards the London Living Wage of £8.30 per-hour set by the Greater London Authority. Defending jobs does not mean the Living Wage has ceased to be a key objective. In recent months, the IWGB has increased in membership of cleaners across the John Lewis stores and many workers are looking for real change. Cleaners now know they can win; the IWGB will be holding the John Lewis Partnership and its contractors to account in the coming months with regard to the ongoing discussions to lift the cleaners out of poverty pay.

The John Lewis Partnership and its sub-contractors need to take note of the widespread solidarity the cleaner gained from across the Labour Movement. Steve Hedley, Assistant General Secretary of RMT and Chris Baugh, Assistant General Secretary of the PCS both addressed pickets at John Lewis, Chris said: "The PCS fully supports the John Lewis workers' demand for the living wage. Employers who sub-contract poverty pay, like the government and John Lewis, need to be both exposed and taken on." Twenty-four MP’s signed an Early Day Motion 301 submitted by John McDonnell MP showing their support for the John Lewis Cleaners, many writing directly to Charlie Mayfield, John Lewis Chairman.

The IWGB extends heartfelt thanks to all the members of the labour movement who gave solidarity to the cleaners and the countless customers of John Lewis who wrote in support of the cleaners struggle.

INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM A NEW FORCE IN THE BRITISH LABOUR MOVEMENT

Building on its recent successes in a series of disputes with employers the IWW London Regional Committee has in conjunction with a range of other members of the labour movement taken the decision to re-launch as the Industrial Workers of the Great Britain. The IWGB was originally founded in January 1909 with the aim of creating a new force in the British labour movement the re-launched IWGB adheres to the same goals advanced then – ‘the immediate object of the Industrial Workers of Great Britain is to build up a militant Industrial Union’.

The IWGB sets as a goal organising the unorganised with its militant organising drive a springboard for future expansion.

The IWGB recognises we live in tough times - austerity policies are reducing our standard of living. Everywhere employers are seeking to maximise their profits by job cuts, making people work harder, longer and paying them as little as possible. But there is an alternative. Our union stands on the principle to get workplace justice. Solidarity wins!

IWGB is an independent union. We are a voluntary association of workers fighting only for the interests of workers. We are not in ‘partnership’ with bosses, held back by bureaucrats or pleasing establishment politicians.

WINNING A FUTURE FOR HUMANITY

Such is the scale of the problems we face today we cannot afford to address them separately - piecemeal solutions are not enough because these problems are a product of the system we live under. This dog eat dog system cannot work in the interests of the majority. Industrial unionism links the struggles of today with the need for a new society fit for human beings. This ideal has nothing in common with the totalitarian ‘communism’ proclaimed in Russia and China! Or even the old Labour Party model of state-ownership. We want more freedom and democracy not dominated by party bosses and state bureaucrats. We seek a co-operative, sustainable society that puts a decent life for people before profits, for democratic self-management and social ownership, instead of control of our lives by corporations and their politicians.

Despite the many problems working class people face, the potential to change things for the better is within our reach, but we can only do it if we organise together. Join the fighting union for the 21st century.

- END -

So this is a split from the IWW? Follow up post from the Cleaner's Branch below:

Edit: Cleaners Branch post was updated, see below:

There are numerous reasons why the London Regional Committee has reached this decision to reconstitute ourselves as I.W.G.B. Some reasons are organisational, others are political and there is no escaping the reality that the shameful conduct of a minority element has been an influence on our decision. To some fellow-workers this decision may come as a surprise – to others closer to events in London they may wonder why we have waited so long. To those fellow-workers who have shown a great deal of solidarity and assistance we appreciate you will be disappointed. However, as George Barnard Shaw said, “if history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience”. Therefore, in the interests of negating Bernard Shaw and enhancing the consciousness and clout of the working class in these portentous times, we hope that you all fraternally receive our revolutionary resurrection of the IWGB.

I don't get why they talk about a "rebirth of industrial unionism" when they are organising cleaners by trade.

IWGB press release

Building on its recent successes in a series of disputes with employers the IWW London Regional Committee has in conjunction with a range of other members of the labour movement taken the decision to re-launch as the Industrial Workers of the Great Britain

I wonder who those "other members of the labour movement" are.
Anyway, best of luck to the cleaners.

Fucking awesome for the cleaners. That much I'll say.

Very cool about the win.

Can someone tell me if I understand some of the background correctly, please? (And apologies if this is off topic/needs to be split to a new thread.)
1. In the UK, workers in a registered union can legally strike at any time if they vote to do so. Yeah?
2. Workers in the UK who strike in that way have some legal protection. Yeah? If so, can someone tell me what those protections are?
3. Workers in the UK who are not in a registered union do not have any legal protections for striking. But striking is not criminalized. It's just a conflict between workers and employees and the state doesn't get involved. Yeah?
4. The cleaners have been organizing for a few years, prior to their affiliating to the IWW as a branch. Yeah? If so, is there anything written about any of that, or can people talk about that if they've got experience of it, preferably without bringing recent disagreements into it?

As far as I know

1. Yes but there not quite "at anytime". There are rules about balloting etc.
2. & 3. A big issue is that one wildcat strike you can be held financially liable for losses incurred during a strike and you can be fired/victimised etc.
4. Awesome Dude's post here covers most of the details. Basically they were being organised in Unite (one of the two big unions) with support from the LAWAS and the Cleaners Defence Committee (CDC), most of them then split from Unite and joined the IWW and set themselves up as a seperate branch. A major issue here is that there has been a pretty consistent divide between the leaders of the cleaners and the cleaners themselves. Awesome Dude gives more details.

There's much that can be said about the cleaners branch/movement but the most important question mark remains over it's long term sustainability. There are about 3 to 5 main organisers (two of whom are not cleaners) who do most of the casework and campaign organising rather than the workers themselves taking on most of the organising details collectively. This has resulted in centralisation around the cleaners branches two most active organisers who both have exceptional but rare qualities not easily reproduced: one brilliant at motivating fellow cleaner workers around him and the other at with commanding knowledge of workplace law and an extensive contact list of leading trade unionists & parliamentarians.

georgestapleton

1. Yes but there not quite "at anytime". There are rules about balloting etc

Basically there's no positive right to strike in English law. Official action is 'protected', which means dismissal for taking part is automatically unfair. For action to be official, afaik, it must be organised by a certified independent trade union (the IWW has this status), it must follow a secret postal ballot in accordance with the law, it must be in furtherance of a trade dispute with the workers' employer (i.e. not sympathy or political strike action ), the employer must be notified in detail at least 7 days in advance, it must be called by someone in the union with 'proper authority', plus several other legal conditions (can't be in support of workers sacked for unofficial action, can't be to enforce a closed shop). The government's summary is here. If any of those conditions aren't met, the action can lose its 'protected' status (this was behind the spate of legal challenges to ballots at British Airways, on the railways, and with the Sparks last year - specifically technicalities of whether ballots were sent to the right addresses of current members; invariably there were administrative errors which courts used to block strikes).

If action isn't 'protected', participants can be lawfully fired, and in theory sued for damages arising from breach of contract (e.g. lost revenue), though normally the union would be sued as they have more money than the individual striking workers.

This hasn't been so common lately, but in the 70s and 80s employers would often seek civil injunctions on various grounds to limit or disrupt strikes and picketing. I'm not sure of the current status of this, but stuff like protection from harassment, trespass etc are all civil torts which a court could make an injunction on. Breaching an injunction would then be contempt of court, which can lead to imprisonment 'until the contempt is purged' (theoretically there's no limit).

I'm also not sure how the Human Rights Act would effect all this (I'm not up on the latest case law). Article 11 guarantees "Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests." But then immediately says this 'fundamental' right can be limited: "No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights other than such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others [i.e. private property] ." So no restrictions, except whatever the state wants to legislate. It also exempts employees of "the armed forces, of the police or of the administration of the State" from these 'fundamental human rights'.

Thanks y'all. All of this is quite different from the US, which makes it a bit harder to understand since I don't know how it works over there. In the US, unions can't strike most of the time during contracts unless management breaks the law. A lot of strikes are over getting employers to sign contracts or agree on some terms during negotiation. I also think the state gets involved less often on either side here - either enforcing employer side things, like having workers pay damages to an employer for the costs of an uncertified/illegitimate strike, or on the workers side of protecting workers from retaliation/replacement for striking. This article gets into some of the differences. I think when employers break the law and workers strike in response (an "unfair labor practice strike") it works roughly like in the UK, though I think the administrative agencies may move more slowly which can still hang workers out to dry because they go without income for a long time while stuff is sorted out through the courts, even if they ultimately get back pay. In a strike for improvements ("economic strike") strikers can be permanently replaced. I don't know about penalties like having to repay bosses for economic harm, though.