Main photo courtesy of UVW
The United Voices of the World union has been representing marginalised workers for more than five years, using direct action tactics and grassroots organising to empower workers in low-paid, vulnerable sectors where outsourcing and poor conditions are rife.
Real Media reported at the end of 2021 on the campaign to bring security staff in-house at Great Ormond Street Hospital. The struggle was characterised as fighting racist policies, because 33 mainly BAME security guards were left out of an agreement which gave sick and holiday pay entitlement to hundreds of previously outsourced staff at the hospital.
At the same time, UVW were fighting a similar battle on behalf of majority Black and brown park attendants and cleaners working at London’s Royal Parks, where in November they won a legal victory over a claim of indirect racial discrimination. The win established that Royal Parks’ policy of not paying outsourced BAME cleaners and attendants the London Living Wage amounted to discrimination as they were paying mainly white in-house staff the higher rate. The court agreed that the policy of paying less to outsourced workers disadvantaged the predominantly Black cleaners.
The win opens the floodgates for similar claims, and Royal Parks are currently appealing the decision in court. The government was so alarmed at the possible implications of a union win, that it applied to intervene in the appeal, with the Secretary of State for Digital Culture, Media and Sport warning that there was “a significant risk that the Employment Tribunal’s judgement will lead to a proliferation of “copycat” claims brought by outsourced workers.”
The Employment Appeal Tribunal refused the government’s intervention and are hearing the Royal Parks’ appeal currently.
UVW General Secretary Petros Elia said “The government’s failed political intervention in this case highlights how high the stakes are. They were right to argue that a win here would open the floodgates for other groups of outsourced workers to bring similar claims – which it would and which absolutely should happen if they are being institutionally discriminated against. If we succeed it will effectively ring the death knell of discriminatory outsourcing and UVW is proud to be the pioneer in chipping away at this antiquated and abhorrent Thatcherite practice”.
