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Three militant strikes by contract cleaners on government buildings have recently given a new boost to the campaign started two years ago to organise nightcleaners into unions to fight for better pay and conditions.
CONTRACT CLEANING Contract cleaning has been steadily growing in recent years. The main reason for this has been the switch of government occupied buildings from direct labour to contract labour so as to cut costs. The union rates for direct labour average between E18 and £19 per week, while contract workers are lucky to get as much as £15 per week. Contract cleaners are also ex pected to clean 1500 square feet per hour as opposed the 1000 square feet per hour of the directly employed cleaner. Overheads in the cleaning industry are practically nil. So after paying wages almost all the rest of the contract money is sheer profit-which on some lucrative contracts can run to as much as 30 or even 50 per cent of the total. The three major combines, Pritchards, General and Initial, have tried to form a price ring, but the fierce competition still often results in under-tendering, which means that the workers really have to be squeezed dry in order to extract a decent profit. This frequently leads to understaffing of buildings with the remaining staff being paid a few pence extra cover money"
EMPRESS BUILDING STRIKE The first of the three recent strikes started on Sunday, 30th, at the Empress Building in Fulham, which houses Ministry of Defence personnel. The nightcleaners there came out on five demands: an increase of £3.50 a week, sickness benefit, more holiday pay (to be paid in advance), union recognition, and more staff to share out the work. After several days of suspense the strike was made official by the Civil Service Union and the women given £10 a week strike pay. A week later they were joined on the same demands by 25 cleaners from the Admiralty Building in Whitehall.
Both buildings are cleaned by the same contractor, a small firm called Clean Agents owned by a Mr. Rhoda. During the sz rikes 24-hour pickets were organised by the cleaners, supported by Women's Liberation Workshop, Socialist CAR PARK Everyone's a w with Chri Woman, the International Marxist Group, I.S. and other leftists. Most important, they were also supported by the local Trades Council and the local branch of the National Union of Railwaymen. This was the first tangible support from other workers ever received in a cleaners' strike, and it made a huge difference to morale. It also made it much easier to generalise from the issues of the strike to the question of the class struggle as a whole.
The picket lines were respected by other workers servicing the building: postal workers, dustmen, food suppliers etc. In fact the picketing was so effective that the Ministry was soon warning that it might have to close the Empress Building. In this situation the Government was forced to intervene theough the Department of Employment to arrange a swift settlement. The settlement gave the union negotiating rights, and a basic of £16.50 plus 50p attendance money. After a promise of more staff was also extracted the women at both buildings accepted the offer and returned to work.
HOME OFFICE STRIKE On 13 August another strike developed -this time at the Home Office building in Horseferry Road, This building was cleaned by another small contractor, Gatlands. This time the strike was for the reinstatement of a supervisor, sacked for allegedly being the source of a Morning Star article on the appalling pay and conditions on the building. She was reinstated almost immediately as the cleaners threatened to use the same militant tactics employed in the other strikes, but an attempt to broaden the struggle to include the same demands as the other buildings was blocked by the union. However, three weeks later they were out again and quickly received the same basic as the other cleaners had won.
CONDITIONS We are fortunate to have the concrete details of the Gatland contract which is undoubtedly typical of many such. The cleaners employed by the firm were earning E12 a week basic plus El attendance money for a full week's work; there was no sickness pay, and only one week's holiday allowance. For this they were expected to clean nine floors, seven of which have 60 offices on each floor. The supervisor estimated that a minimum of 18 women were needed but the actual number usually fluctuated around 10 to a dozen, i e. as much as 45 per cent understaffing. Por this the contractor was being paid £310 per week!
IMPORTANCE OF THE STRIKES These strikes were the most militant yet in the whole nightcleaners campaign. They can therefore be expected to encourage other nightcleaners to act since quite clearly solidarity and industrial action pay. But equally important were the politicising effects of the struggle on the cleaners themselves. The picket line became a forum every night for animated discussion on almost every aspect of the current political situation, and the film Salt of the Earth was shown one night against a brick wall outside and excitedly discussed for hours, In other words, from their own struggle the nightcleaners were increasingly able to generalise the lessons involved and to place it in the context of the ongoing class struggle as a whole.
James Griffiths.
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On Thursday, 28 September, Pat Sturdy from the AUEW in Burnley was due to speak to a meeting of socialists and trade unionists in the AUEW rooms in Sheffield. The meeting had been arranged by a woman member of the Communist Party working in the local Socialist Woman group, and had been