Support NPL cleaners unfairly sacked! Action report

Activists picketed the Institute of Directors on Pall Mall this lunchtime to protest against the suspension of cleaners working for Amey PLC at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington.
The action comes as five cleaners at the NPL wait for the results of a disciplinary hearing after they were suspended for the crime of, er, being in a union and trying to let other NPL staff know what has been going on in the cleaning department. This is the latest in a series of measures taken against the cleaners since Amey, which is owned by Spanish multinational Ferrovia, took over the cleaning contract in May 2007 and found itself faced with a largely Latin American migrant workforce that had recently unionised and was taking steps to gain recognition – something afforded to all other NPL staff. The first came last year, when the company invited workers to a ‘training session’, only to bolt the doors behind them and leave them in the care of the Home Office, which promptly deported three of them, one to Colombia and two to Brazil, for not having official documents.
Pots and pans, dustbin lids, whistles and voices created a wall of noise outside the ‘Nanofinance 2008’ event, held at the Institute and attended by representatives of the NPL, as activists handed out leaflets and talked to participants, including NPL staff, some of who expressed solidarity with the cleaners.
Full report http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2008/09/409533.html