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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 31st 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
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