News

South London Solidarity Federation Supports the Tube Cleaners.
An article about the Tube cleaners Strike and action reports.
July 4th, 2008 taken from LibCom.org

Tube cleaners’ union RMT has demanded an end to “appalling intimidation“ of members involved in a 48-hour strike for a living wage on, one on July 1st-3rd. Tube cleaners also engaged in a 24-hour strike on June 25th-26th.
The union is gathering evidence that cleaners have been bullied, harassed and threatened with the sack and with illegal punitive deductions from their wages if they take strike action.
“Reports coming in from picket lines over the last 36 hours indicate that the employers are so desperate that they are resorting to gangster-style intimidation and using the worst sort of fear tactics to stop more people joining the strike, “ RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today.
“That is testimony to the effectiveness of our 700 members’ solid action and the fact that RMT membership has grown since the strike began, but it also underlines the scale of the problems our members have to endure down there.
“Managers have been threatening people with the sack if they join the strike and telling them that they will have sums deducted from their wages that are way above what they could have earned during the strike.
“Others are being told blatant lies, such as they are not allowed to join the union after the strike ballot.
“At Stratford seasoned reps are telling us that they are appalled at the level of intimidation they have seen and at the squalid conditions ISS cleaners there have to endure, with men and women having to change for work together in a tiny store-room with no privacy.
“This is also where workers have to race each other to work in the morning because managers allow the number they require to book on and send the rest home without pay.
“That is disgusting wherever it happens, but on one of the world’s most prestigious metro systems it is inexcusable, and we hope Londoners will join us in demanding an end to the disgraceful exploitation that is taking place in their name, “ Bob Crow said.

The 48-hour strike by 700 tube cleaners working for cleaning subcontractors ISS, ITS, ICS and GBM on London Underground began at 18:50 on Tuesday evening and ended at 19:00 on Thursday evening. The cleaners' demands are a wage increase - to bring their wages up to the London Living Wage of £7.20 rather than the £5.50 many find themselves on now - as well as 28 days holiday, sick pay, decent pensions and travel facilities, and an end to the barbaric practice of ‘third-party sackings’ in which cleaners can be dismissed, with no disciplinary hearing or right of appeal, at the behest parties other than the employer - a device used to get rid of union activists.

South London SolFed have been invovled in supporting the strikers, below is a report on an action we were invovled in.

On Wed 13thAugust around 30 protestors turned up at the Greenwich offices of multinational cleaning comany ISS to protest against the letter sent out by the company to dozens of tube cleaners requesting they come in for a 'document check' that day.
It is clear to the cleaners' union RMT that this is part of the reprisals against the tube cleaners for the 3-day strike in support of a Living Wage which they held in late July. Activists and reps among the cleaners have been targetted, with a view to break union organization.
A lively picket of the 15 Park Vista office was held with people from a variety of groups and unions brought together under the the banner of the Campaign against Immigration Controls. At the same time a number of concerned citizens entered the foyer of the premises in case the ISS managers were unable to hear the message properly. However the managers lost their cool and called the police, while refusing to allow in union reps, who had arrived separately. They argued that the picket was upsetting the neighbourghood peace and quiet, while demonstrators argued back that the detentions and deportations and union busting their paper checks cause is a bit more upsetting. One protestor was arrested and is currently out on bail.
Undeterred the cleaners will be on strike again from 21 August at 5.30 am till 23 August. This time support is expected from cleaners in Unite-T&G and coincidentally engineers on Tubelines will be on strike at the same time.
ISS will talk to the RMT at ACAS on Monday morning. This is the first time they have agreed to talk to the union since the dispute for the London Living Wage began. The RMT is calling a demonstration at 9.30am on Monday outside the ACAS offices, opposite Borough tube.
A public meeting on these and all current tube disputes is to be held by the RMT union at Friends House Euston Road on Tuesday 19 August at 6pm.
Also see these reports
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/407016.html
http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/07/feminist-fightback-women...
http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2008/08/23/justice-4-tube-cleaners-t...

A top London restaurant paid only £1.50 an hour to a kitchen porter.

Cesare Copeta, a member of the Solidarity Federation's South London local, was employed by The Food Room, owners of The French Table restaurant in Surrey and the Tom Ilic restaurant in Battersea, which is currently listed in Time Out's Top 50 London restaurants.

He was employed as a kitchen porter at the Tom Ilic restaurant and had applied for the job through an advertisement in the Department of Work and Pension's Jobcentre Plus database.

He worked 50 hours over a 2 week shift, but was then paid only £75. Having been paid only £1.50 per hour, he walked out of the job in disgust.

The South London local of Mr Copeta's union, Solidarity Federation, wrote to the employer to inform him of our member's legal entitlement to the National Minimum Wage, payment for wrongful dismissal and accrued holiday pay and organised a picket outside the restaurant. At the start of the picket, the employer agreed to pay the member his wages at a little over the rate set at the National Minimum Wage and has also paid the member's accrued holiday pay.

The South London local are continuing its actions to recoup our member's pay in lieu of a weeks notice for wrongful dismissal. Its secretary said "The catering industry is riddled with long hours, low pay and shady practices. This is a far cry from the glamorous world of celebrity chefs. We are determined to help workers do something about the conditions they face."

Lambeth's new Housing Association, Community Trust Housing, provided personal details of over a thousand tenants and leaseholders in a serious breach of the Data Protection Act.

Community Trust Housing gave a 12 page spreadsheet containing over 1300 names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and dates of tenancies and leases to "persons unknown" as part of a court action to gain possession of five houses. These documents were filed with the court, and attached to the outside front door of each of the properties, where anyone walking past could have read them.

Community Trust Housing was set up in 2007 after a transfer of over 1000 homes on the Stockwell Park Estate from Lambeth Council. It is promoted as a tenant-led housing association whereby 7 members of the 12 member board are appointed by tenants, 4 are independently selected and 1 is a Lambeth councillor.

Community Trust Housing took possession proceedings in the Lambeth County Court against the five properties that were occupied by unknown persons. On Friday 25th January 2008 they were awarded possession of the properties. It was in attempting to prove the legal determination of previous tenancies that the document was submitted to the court. However the document also contained the details of over a thousand other tenants and leaseholders. There was no attempt to erase or block out the details of the other properties not affected in the court proceedings.

These proceedings are public and the court documents form part of the public record. Any person can inspect the court record documents and access these private details. It is a serious breach of the Data Protection Act and shows that it is not just government that is cavalier with people's data.

The Solidarity Federation fights for the rights of workers at work and where they live. We support community involvement in managing housing, but will continue to keep watching the management.

On 23rd January, 2008 five Mapuche rights activists were in the 103rd day of a hunger strike at the Temuco and Angol prison in Chile's Region IX. Each of the hunger strikers—Mapuches Jaime Marileo Saravia, Juan Millalen Milla, Hector Llaitul Carrillanca and Jose Huenchunao and non-Mapuche Patricia Troncoso Roble—has lost more than 25 kilos.
Patricia Troncoso is seriously ill, the last week end five doctors visited her and agreed to move her to a Santiago hospital, also they denounced that she has been keep chained to her bed, despite she is extremely weak. The five prisoners have been on hunger strike since Oct. 10 to demand the release of more than 20 indigenous Mapuche activists they consider political prisoners; an end to the militarization of the traditional Mapuche territories; and an end to repression against Mapuche activists.

On Nov. 21, agents from the militarized Carabineros police attacked a peaceful march in Santiago in support of the Mapuche prisoners on hunger strike. Police arrested 17 women, 15 men and two minors. The same day, Nov. 21, six other Mapuche activists—five of them
women--began an open-ended hunger strike at the cathedral in the community of Canete, in Arauco province, Region VII, in support of the five prisoners. On Nov. 28, retired judge Juan Guzman met with Interior Minister Belisario Velasco to seek the government's urgent intervention on behalf of the five Mapuche prisoners, who are serving harsh sentences under an "anti-terrorism" law passed under the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1973-1990). (PiensaChile.com, Nov. 29; Communique from Canete Hunger Strikers, Nov. 28; Programa Radial Mapuche Wixage Anai, Nov. 22; all via Red Solidaria por los Derechos Humanos-REDH)

On Nov. 7 Chilean authorities suddenly moved prisoners José Huenchunao and Patricia Troncoso Robles to the hospital in Angol in Region IX, apparently because of the effects of a 28-day hunger strike. Along with three other prisoners—José Millalen, Jaime Marileo and Hector Llaitul—Huenchunao and Troncoso started an open-ended hunger strike on Oct. 10 to demand the release of more than 20 indigenous Mapuche activists they consider political prisoners; an end to the militarization of the traditional Mapuche territories; and an end to repression.

As of Nov. 8 the authorities hadn't released information on Huenchunao and Troncoso's condition. Huenchunao, a Mapuche, suffers from chronic gastritis and has lost about 12 kilograms. Troncoso, a non-Mapuche supporter, may have been weakened by three previous hunger strikes. She carried out a fast of about 30 days in 2005 and then a 63-day strike, along with three other prisoners, from Mar. 13 to May 14 in 2006. The four prisoners resumed the strike for one week in May 2006 but suspended the action when legislators agreed to consider a bill allowing conditional release for the prisoners — a bill the Senate ended up voting down in September 2006.

The Mapuche prisoners charge that they are not treated impartially by the judicial system as they try to fight against privatization and other neoliberal policies in their traditional territories. The government of Socialist president Michelle Bachelet is pursuing economic policies inherited from the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, according to hunger striker Hector Llaitul, who called for solidarity actions. There have been protests in Chile, and on Oct. 26 activists demonstrated at the Chilean embassies in Geneva and London.