P R E S S S T A T E M E N T Victory for Living Wage protesters at Birkbeck College!
Staff and students to demonstrate to end poverty pay for cleaners + caterers across Bloomsbury!
March, stunt + rally this May Day!
The recently-formed Bloomsbury Living Wage campaign has called a demonstration for this May Day (1st May.) The protest will include a stunt to make visible the contribution that low-paid and mainly-migrant cleaners and caterers make to our city; and will call for the introduction of the London Living Wage (LLW) across the many educational centres in Bloomsbury.
The LLW is a minimum wage and conditions package established by the GLA, which takes into account the higher costs of living in London. Its rate (currently £7.45 an hour) has been calculated carefully through adapting the national minimum wage to local conditions. It also includes a series of other basic rights (including sick pay and union rights.)
Recently, after a long campaign by Birkbeck staff and student unions, which was supported by public figures such as Ken Loach and MP John McDonnell, management at the university agreed to pay all cleaning and catering staff the Living Wage rate. This followed a similarly successful campaign at SOAS, and the decision by 27 other employers across London to implement the Living Wage. Now Birkbeck and SOAS activists have joined forces with other Bloomsbury college campaigners to organise a May Day protest.
Some Bloomsbury universities still pay wages as low as the minimum wage of £5.73. This means that to make ends meet cleaners and other staff often end up doing several jobs (sometimes on top of organising childcare) and working unsociable early morning and weekend shifts. Further, there even have been cases of unscrupulous subcontractors not paying employees for months.
We say that the people who prepare our food and make our buildings fit for purpose are essential to making universities function properly. They deserve to be treated with dignity!
We have chosen international workers’ day (May Day) to demand this, as too often low-paid migrant workers are treated as ‘invisible’ and their contribution to the work and society, ignored.
Our 1st May action will begin with a rally (including MPs and other public figures) at 12 pm midday at the main steps, SOAS, 10 Thornhaugh St.
The Bloomsbury Living Wage Campaign is supported by activists from UCL, SOAS, Birkbeck, LSHTM, Senate House, and Institute of Education.
For more information contact Camilla on 07789 680 115 or c.royle@ucl.ac.uk
Everyone deserves a Living Wage!
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