Cleaners at the Houses of Parliament face a 25% cut in jobs and the same company is victimising our members elsewhere, reports Cleaners Union CAIWU

The Labour Party won the 2024 election on a platform of change: to rebuild our country so that it “once again serves the interests of working people.” But change starts at home. And the Churchill group – the outsourced company recently awarded the contract to clean the Houses of Parliament – is planning to cut staffing by between 30-50 people, leading to mass redundancy and increased workload. With 90% union density, our members are preparing to fight back.

In May 2024, the Houses of Parliament appointed the Churchill Group as their new cleaning contractor. Since then, members of the Cleaners and Allied Independent Workers Union (CAIWU) have faced chaos and uncertainty: pressure to sign new contracts, changed pay structure and plans to cut the workforce by 25%. Despite promises from the incumbent Government to create real change for working people, Keir Starmer has ridden back on several pledges regarding an end to outsourcing since his election as Labour Party leader in 2019. But a key question remains: if Keir Starmer and the incumbent Labour Party can’t even ensure the fair and equal treatment of those in their own house, what does it say about the future of workers across the country?

We know that outsourcing leads to situations where companies compete to win contracts by offering lower prices, and it’s the workers who pay the consequences. They lose their jobs, and those who remain face increased workloads, leading to physical and mental health issues, while the private sector reaps the rewards. What’s more, it creates a two-tier workforce where those unlucky enough to be outsourced lack the same rights and allowances as their peers.

Lucy Powell, Leader of the House of Commons, pledged in an article published by Labour List on May 14th 2024 to improve parliament’s culture: “enhancing and embedding employment practices, tackling abuse and harassment in Parliament, making Parliament a better and safer workplace with further action on exclusions and complaints; considering how Parliament can better reflect our diverse country.”

Yet our members, comprising primarily migrant workers, are left wondering: why don’t they count? CAIWU members at the Houses of Parliament said:

“We want to be treated fairly, to have the same benefits as the other workers in the House. What we mean is that if the House gives something to all workers in Parliament, we should receive the same and not something else. But right now we do not get sick pay. We do not get extra for overtime, night and weekend shifts. We do not get holiday pay, and we have not seen a pay rise for a long time. And now we have a new contractor threatening cuts to cleaners who have worked tirelessly in Parliament for decades, including putting themselves at risk to keep others safe during the pandemic.”

“Why are they are distressing all of us with this threat of uncertainty. This company arrived two months ago: we didn’t ask for this change. And we have been working here for 18, 20, 30 years.”

The Churchill Group is also at the centre of another dispute with CAIWU’s members. They are responsible for attempting to implement cuts of up to 50% at tech giant Meta’s London offices and subsequently initiating an official dispute there. Five of CAIWU’s most outspoken members have been made redundant on spurious grounds, amounting to clear trade union victimisation.

As the new Labour Government plans to strengthen workers’ rights to collective bargaining, why should a company with Churchill’s track record be anywhere near the centre of policymaking in this country?

A CAIWU spokesperson said of the dispute:

“The Churchill Group is, at present, the source of much stress and hardship for our members in workplaces across the capital. At Meta our members have been subject to mass redundancies and trade union victimisation. We were shocked to discover that the same unscrupulous employer is contracted to service the highest law in the land—The Houses of Parliament— but less surprised to hear our members’ experiences of them are much the same as everywhere else. We demand that Keir Starmer put his money where his mouth is and bring cleaners in-house now.”

 The timeline of events is as follows:

• In April 2024, Parliament’s cleaning contract went through a Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE).

• Cleaners were not informed or consulted about the transfer but were made aware of it on May 1st 2024 where, during their work hours, they felt pressured to sign new contracts from their new employer, the Churchill Group. These contracts were complex and many cleaners found them difficult to understand, given English was not their first language.

• Nonetheless, they signed the new contracts for fear of their own job security. According to them, the transition was “rushed and unclear, leaving us anxious and uninformed about our future”

• Soon after the Churchill Group was awarded the contract, changes were made to workers’ pay cycles from monthly to fortnightly, adding further strain in an already stressful and uncertain financial climate.

• On July 8^th 2024, Churchill Services announced a plan to cut the workforce by 25%, with redundancies starting on September 2^nd 2024. This happened despite our members having been assured there would be no changes to their terms of employment because of the TUPE transfer. When they queried the proposed cuts, they were told “any decision we make will have been instructed by the house.”

CAIWU will be hosting a demonstration against the Churchill Group on August 16th at Meta’s Kings Cross offices, with more planned at the Houses of Parliament in the coming weeks should the cuts not stop.

CAIWU was founded in 2016 and is an independent workers union designed to help organise cleaners across the UK. CAIWU is run by its members, for its members and all have equal rights and an equal voice. CAIWU has waged several high-profile campaigns at the Royal Opera House, University of East London, Facebook, Nike Town, the British Medical Association and the Ministry of Defence. CAIWU continues to campaign for improved pay and working conditions across its organised workplaces.

Main image:British Houses of Parliament. Source: The British Parliament and Big Ben, Author: Maurice from Zoetermeer, Netherlands, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.