• City bankers "earn" £9 billion in Christmas bonuses
• Top executives get £1 million each - 90 years work for cleaners on
minimum wage
By Sofie Buckland
As City bankers prepare to rake in record bonuses this Christmas, the armies of cleaners who keep the City running are being paid the bare minimum to maximise profits.
The average Christmas bonus was £23,000 last year, set to rise 20% this year as a total of £9 billion is paid out to financial executives. Three thousand will receive over Ł1million each.
Cleaners, contracted out via one of the many sweatshop cleaning companies, would have to work for ninety years to match this bonus, let alone the already exorbitant salaries of top executives. Many are not entitled to sick pay, receive only twenty days of holiday and do not have union recognition.
But the cleaners are fighting back. The T&G's Justice for Cleaners campaign, which began two weeks of action at the end of November, with vibrant daily demonstrations outside some of the biggest city firms saw cleaners demanding union recognition and a living minimum wage. Goldman Sachs, the global investment bank, came under particular fire for holding a large stake in the ISS cleaning contractors, one of the worst offenders. A week of loud demonstrations ended with an occupation of the Goldman Sachs offices, bringing national media attention to the campaign. The T&G have subsequently won a union recognition deal with ISS.
The campaign is continuing to shame and disrupt other large companies who turn a blind eye to the practices of their contractors. On the Underground the RMT union is launching a similar campaign, kicking off with the same techniques of direct action by workers - many of them migrant workers - coupled with a drive to organise cleaners across the Tube network.
The labour movement will never revive unless it organises young, low-paid, precarious and migrant workers into its ranks.
The T&G's campaign to organise City cleaners, and the RMT's campaign with cleaners on Tube, are just what is needed.
