Low-paid workers at the Royal College of Music protest for improved conditions on graduation day

Outsourced workers at the Royal College of Music will once again protest for improved terms and conditions today at 1.30pm at the college (Prince Consort Road, London, SW7 2BS).  The protest will take place outside the postgraduate graduation ceremony, and is part of an on-going campaign by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) for improved sick pay, holiday and pensions.

Like many other higher education institutions in Great Britain, the Royal College of Music (RCM) outsources its cleaning services. However, the outsourced employees are faced with inadequate employment terms as the institution refuses responsibility for their conditions, unlike those employed by the college directly.

The cleaners at RCM, employed by Ocean Integrated Services, receive no occupational sick pay, the statutory minimum holiday as well as meagre employer pension contributions. “Even if [we] show proof from a GP that [we are] ill, [we] still wouldn’t get paid. I know many of my co-workers in this situation…There is a lot of exploitation” said Wilson Ayala Romero, an RCM cleaner and the Campaigns Officer for the University of London branch of the IWGB.

The protest comes after the IWGB won the London Living Wage for these workers in May 2015, and is part of a wider campaign to ensure sufficient employment terms and conditions for outsourced workers at the RCM.  The RCM 3 Cosas campaign is modelled on the overwhelmingly successful University of London 3 Cosas campaign, and has been underway since May 2015.

The cause has already garnered the support of the students at the Royal College of Music, as well as high profile political names, such as Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett and the long term Labour MP John McDonnell. Dr. Jason Moyer-Lee, President of the IWGB, stated: “We’ve offered to meet RCM for negotiations both directly and via ACAS. We’ve even offered to suspend Friday’s protest if they agree to negotiate. Repeated offers have been rejected or met with silence. So we will continue to campaign using the methods that we know are effective, until we win.”