Tube cleaners and annual leave

Posted in Janine's blog on ,

RMT is currently in the middle of a fortnight's intensive organising work amongst Tube and rail cleaners. Yesterday, I and others spent a lot of time talking with cleaners on London Underground's Central line. Every one I spoke to is a member of the RMT - some for up to a decade, some more recently - and are pleased to see a lot of campaigning from the union on cleaners' issues (more so than perhaps in the past). We have some new volunteers to become union reps.

Their working conditions are dreadful. It's not just picking up litter, but mopping up bodily fluids and other spillages. Their employer, GBM, pays them £5.50 per hour and gives them 12 days annual leave. Yes, 12 days.

Hang on, I hear you say, isn't there a legal minimum of 20 days annual leave?! Isn't that one of the great leaps in workers' rights that New Labour has given us?! Well, it was more to do with the EU's Working Time Regulations than with your actual Labour government, but there's a catch anyway ... The 20 days includes 8 days statutory bank holidays, and 20 minus 8 is 12. That's two weeks and two days. This fabulous new legal right is hardly big enough to merit the word 'crumb'.

The TUC has been lobbying the government to exclude bank holidays so workers would have a legal minimum of 20 plus 8 ie. 28 days. The government has, apparently, agreed to this in principle, but wants to phase it in gradually over the next century or so. OK, maybe that's an exaggeration, but they want to phase it in gradually so as not to upset employers. So it's fine to exploit workers so long as you don't offend bosses. Hey, there's not a lot of Labour in this Labour government.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about upsetting cowboy bosses such as GBM, who are happy to go on giving their workers the absolute minimum that the law requires. In fact, if I were the Labour government, I'd be worried if I were not upsetting them.

Here for your information is the policy propsoed by Amicus and passed unanimously by TUC Congress this year.

Bank holidays

Congress welcomes the Government's recent announcement to treat public holidays as an addition to the 20 days' annual leave entitlement in the Working Time Directive, but is concerned that workers will have to wait up to three years before the eight days' additional leave is fully implemented.

Congress notes that approximately one million of the UK's worst paid and poorly treated workers stand to benefit from the addition of bank holidays to statutory paid holiday entitlement.

Congress rejects any proposal that would lead to this increased entitlement to be offset against future increases in national minimum wage levels because low wage workers are those most likely to benefit from the additional holidays.

Given the commitment made in the Government's manifesto to exclude bank holidays from the minimum holiday requirements of the Working Time Directive, Congress believes that this commitment should be implemented in full with effect no later than from 1 October 2007 and should not be subject to a phased approach over the next three years.

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