The East London Communities Organisation (TELCO) was founded in 1996, as the capital's first broad-based community organisation. Its members include churches, mosques, trade unions, schools, colleges and local community groups; ordinary people from a huge diversity of backgrounds working together for the common good.  Some of its campaigns are local (eg safer streets, improving local health services), but several have pan-London and even national significance.

One of these, the Living Wage campaign, arose from the experience of our members who are contract cleaners in Canary Wharf offices and in local hospitals. Although they are paid the national minimum wage of £4.80 per hour, this is scarcely adequate in the face of London prices for housing, travel and other services. Many of them struggle to make ends meet: they are forced to work long shifts, or take on second jobs, or to work through ill health, for fear of losing pay, with a detrimental effect on family life and health. A living wage, set at £6.70 per hour, (as recommended by independent researchers) was adopted a few years ago as one of TELCO?s major objectives.

The trade union branches in TELCO joined forces with better-paid TELCO members who have made the issue their own, to campaign, lobby, march and protest. A boost to both morale and publicity came when a sympathetic HSBC shareholder gave his proxy vote to Abdul Durrant, a Canary Wharf cleaner, who not only attended the bank?s AGM, but also was able to address the meeting on the subject.

Last year, Barclays, HSBC and the Homerton Hospital all announced that they would ensure that their contract cleaners came from companies paying the living wage. YIPPEE!! Our most significant victory, however, came after months of negotiating with Ken Livingstone and his treasury staff. On March 31^st Ken announced that all staff employed by the GLA or its subsidiaries (such as the London Underground) will be paid a minimum of £6.70. DOUBLE YIPPEE!!!!

The GLA are a major employer, and our hope is that their example will make it easier for us to persuade other companies, hospitals, institutions and public sector bodies to raise pay levels for their poorest-paid staff, and bridge the increasingly huge, Dickensian divide between rich and poor throughout London.

Are YOU involved with any organisation that employs eg cleaners and caterers?

What are their pay and conditions of service like?

TELCO is now part of a city-wide alliance called London Citizens: last November, South London Citizens held their founding assembly, and committed themselves to actions which include a public enquiry into conditions at the Immigration and Nationality Department in Croydon. Meanwhile, West and North London and Birmingham Citizens are slowly getting off the ground. If you would like to know more, you may visit www.londoncitizens.org.uk, or www.telcocitizens.org.uk.

Silvana Dallanegra rscj
Province of England-Wales