Meanwhile back in the real world #5 : “At last, London Living Wage for Cleaners in Barnet.”

In the midst of all the mass outsourcing over the last decade one group of outsourced Barnet Council workers have not had much coverage.

I speak of the cleaners.

Barnet Council outsourced the Corporate Cleaning Service in 2004.

The Corporate Cleaning service covers most of the main Council office buildings, schools, children centres and Libraries.

It was one of my aims back then to try and get this service back in house or at the very least to ensure the cleaners were paid as a minimum the London Living Wage (LLW).

The Corporate Cleaning Service has changed contractors a number of times since 2004.

It is now delivered by Churchill Service Solutions who are currently only paying £7.83 hour.

Good News.

• After a number of repeated requests by Barnet UNISON to address about the LLW I can now announce that the Corporate Cleaning contract now includes a clause whereby the winning contractor will now have to pay their cleaners an hourly wage (or equivalent of an hourly wage) equal to the London Living Wage.

The current London Living Wage is £10.20 hour.

This welcome news, whilst we managed to secure the LLW for other outsourced contracts this has been a longstanding fight Barnet UNISON wanted addressing.

The tender process for the Corporate Cleaning contract is currently live and the new contractor announced later this year.

Barnet UNISON welcomes the decision to ensure our cleaners are to be paid the LLW.