[This piece was originally published on Novara Wire a month ago. It has since been taken down so I’m putting it back up here, as it’s hopefully useful for the campaign. Thanks to the Novara team for edits!]
“The cleaners will be brought in-house over my dead body,” said the Chairman.
No one had thought about it before; his body that is. Beneath greying hair and a bespectacled face it stands tall and broad. No one had thought about his body before, because this is not the sort that normally lies prostrated. It is not the sort of body that suffers in labour, that bends and breaks as floors and pipes are scrubbed, that aches from night-time commutes or endless shifts. It is not the sort of body that would usually be sexually assaulted without recourse, by a manager threatening to bundle it into a plane and return it to Latin America if anyone mentioned the incident. Instead it is white and male and middle-aged, wrapped in a well-cut suit. If this body knows physical exertion it is only sport; if it knows sickness it is misfortune or mishap.
That another set of bodies can today be seen in the university – poorly-paid migrant cleaners – is a testament not just to the perennial suffering, but also to relentless struggle and protest. The modern university, like most premises in which commodities are sold, has a policy on cleaners: it is not just dirt that shouldn’t be seen, but those who do the dirty work of cleaning should be kept out of sight too. Yet where conditions for these outsourced workers have become intolerable, they have led a series of victorious campaigns to increase their wages and better their conditions, telling their story loudly as they go.
In recent years, cleaners’ campaigns have come to prominence in London as workers’ struggles that are actually winning – and winning through direct action and strikes. 2016 marks the 10th anniversary of the Justice for Cleaners campaign at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), part of the University of London. The history of their struggle wraps around the globe. While many unions have, since the beginning of the crisis, agreed year-on-year wage decreases with the occasional day of symbolic strike action, the cleaners have done something different. Since the crisis began they have gone from working for a minimum wage with no benefits to earning a living wage, and receiving sick pay, holiday pay and pensions. Now they are demanding to be brought in-house, and to abolish the two-tier workforce that sees them working for private companies. This week the management of SOAS will try to stop that happening.
Across the cleaning sector, labour costs account for between 80% and 95% of expenditure. This work cannot be mechanised, and so those businesses who manage cleaning contracts are involved mainly in the direct administration and domination of labouring bodies. Cutting costs in this industry means only a few things: cutting wages and benefits; maintaining a workforce so utterly abused that it dares not rise up against poor conditions; and being able to discipline, fire or deport workers without complaint.
Outsourcing in general is justified by the idea of an economy of scale. But in an industry in which labour costs are proportionally so high, an economy of scale means only one thing: that companies are specialising in and centralising the discipline and abuse of workers. Meanwhile, profit margins are tight. Companies managing cleaners in universities have already made significant losses where workers have come together and refused to work for anything less than a living wage. The cleaners’ victories have shown that every pound of profit for an outsource company comes from keeping them impoverished.
The management of the university know this too. An independent report commissioned by SOAS, published this month, showed that to bring the cleaners in-house would be ‘cost-neutral’. In fact, the numbers in the report show that if the cleaners had been brought in-house a number of years ago the university would have saved £2.5m. But the university’s management is gearing up to sign a contract for another five years of outsourcing. These managers could be mistaken for really hating these workers: perhaps it’s to do with their skin colour, or their gender, or for the fact that working in such bad conditions has made them poor. Or maybe they just hate that these pained bodies have been seen, and hope another five years of harsh management will hide them away again.
But protest is forcing the managers to listen. Drums and chants disrupted a recent board of trustees meeting. When they rescheduled their meeting the following day they were met with an ultimatum: cleaners’ voices could no longer be ignored. Eventually Consuelo Moreno, a leader of the Justice for Cleaners campaign, was allowed to address the trustees. Her message was simple: “I am here not to ask or request anything, I am here to demand to be brought back in house as the minimum you can do to remedy all the damage you have caused not only to us but also to all the SOAS community.” For the first time in the ten years of campaigning, those who run the school actually agreed to let a cleaner speak. As an outsourced member of staff there are no normal channels for her to speak to those who preside over her fate. That these managers – middle-aged, faces frowning, bodies in suits – have been forced to hear her words is itself a victory. Yet it seems unlikely they will listen.
Perhaps this whole situation will not be decided by managers, but by the challenge to profits caused by protests, strikes and disruption. The cleaners are certainly taking the community with them. One student tells me: “SOAS sells itself to us students as an institution that challenges the orthodoxy of neoliberalism and promotes strong values of social justice. This is why I chose to study here. Soon though I felt disillusioned and betrayed – I never thought it would so eagerly endorse an ideology rooted in the discrimination of cleaners.” Academics and students are now dissenting en masse. If this week a group of managers decides to keep the cleaners outsourced, their decision will be met with ever more fervent struggle.
La lucha continua.
If you want to get involved in the Justice for Cleaners campaign, please look at the Facebook page. There will be a rally outside SOAS on Wednesday 17 February at 1pm coinciding with the management meeting at which the cleaners’ new contracts will be discussed.