Up and getting ready, in the house he shares with seven strangers, his
room a makeshift space carved out next to the kitchen.
Teddy, a social work student in his native Bolivia,
came to London to learn English and says he has ended up trapped in the
low-wage world of cleaning work.
He initially worked full-time on the national minimum wage, but said he
simply couldn't survive, so had to look for a second job.
Teddy decided he would speak out.
With his union, he fought for the London living wage at both his
workplaces.
Within days of winning it at his full-time job, he was told
the number of cleaners at that location had to be cut by one
person.
His second job, in the evening, was with a service company.
One day, his manager called him and other cleaners to a meeting about
staffing.
A week later, this happen.
I have two release one of you.
Teddy was dismissed from the job, his name seemingly out at random.As the conversation
becomes heated, the manager defends the process.
It is not a game.
Am I laughing?
No, I'm not.
I understand you're upset, but don't ever think I'm being
disrespectful to you because I'm not.
We asked an employment lawyer to look at the footage.
Well, it's the most bizarre thing I've seen in my
20 years as an employment lawyer, to essentially stick a name in a hat
and pick a name out of it with no real reasons being given as to why
that is happening and why that name has been picked.
It appears to me to be essentially unlawful, it is an
unfair dismissal from what I've seen, very much like a Victorian
workhouse where you have a master picking out a name of a servant that
is going to be let go.
Relics, whose office space were being cleared,
issued this statement.
Though Relx said they insist all contractors providing services in
the capital pay the London living wage, they acknowledge that this
year they asked contract is to cut costs by 3%.
Teddy's union said they are increasingly seeing cases of
jobs being cut once the living wage has been agreed.
Very often we find a company will agree to pay the
living wage which seems like a victory and then shortly afterwards
they will want to renegotiate the terms and conditions to save money
elsewhere.
Teddy's employer insisted in a statement that he had been
dealt with fairly.
They are
accredited by the living wage foundation, and the foundation
said they expect accredited companies to adhere to implement or
as a minimum requirement and to due process regarding dismissals, and
they are now in talks with all parties involved in Teddy's case.
Across the country, there are many cleaners like Teddy, said the union,
on low pay with few rights, they say it is time for change.
Think about that when you sit down at your desk
and the waste paper basket has been emptied and the sandwich wrappers
are cleared up.
The human being did that.
-- a human being.
Teddy says he is now planning to take his case to a tribunal.
I'm joined now by Conservative MP Rachel Maclean from the Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and Catherine Pearson
who is the manager of Clean for Good, a company that aims
to provide a fairer deal for its cleaners.
It is quite clear the company signed up to the living wage and is
approved as such but clearly it is maltreating its employees.
Yes, it is an extraordinary story, and
clearly shocking the way this employer has treated these people
and there should be no reason for it and not condoned in important law in
this country.
The Taylor report that the Conservative Party had as a
review of modern working practices, were supposed to offer the biggest
reset for this kind of work ever known, but it hasn't happened -- was
supposed.
Matthew Taylor has just produced the report and in the
committee that I'm part of we are taking evidence from him and a
number of other employers, so we're working in the committee to look at
those recommendations and then bring forward to the government what we
think should be done, so there are things we are looking at.
Clearly, nobody wants to see this kind of
thing going on in our biggest city.
What would you tell the government?
To look at how we can be in forcing the employment law better and being
able to give access to people like Teddy, so he can actually know his
rights.
A company like this say they are paying the living wage, but
clearly it is not enough.
No, so in terms of what we do, we pay the
London living wage but we also have processes and systems in place that
treat our cleaners fairly, so they know how to escalate concerns they
might have and we advocate for them on behalf of the client they are
cleaning for.
These con of companies are indeed having to raise the
wages, but of course people are losing their jobs to pay for it --
the difficulty of these companies.
Clearly that isn't where we want to be as a country, and Catherine is an
example of an employer who is doing the right thing.
We need people thinking about where their services
come from in the same way that they think about the goods and things
they buy from supermarkets, they need to make those purchasing
decisions and you highlighted that in your package, it is also down to
the employee that is contracting with that contractor to make sure
they are not contracting something they would not condone themselves in
their own business.
It is happening at night, very often, out of sight
and nobody really knows what is going on and very often they are
foreign workers who don't really know their rights.
It is incumbent on the people paying for that, there
is an reason for them to not ask those difficult questions when they
awarded the contract and it should be within their business model to be
able to pay a decent wage for a decent job, even for cleaning.
You are saying it is the people who
employ the cleaning company?
It is everybody working together in the
supply chain, and clearly the person at the bottom, the cleaner in your
piece, it is not his fault, he needs be treated fairly by everyone else
who is contracting his services.
People should pay more for their cleaners, that is the simplest
answer.
Yes, we believe that, the London living wage is the minimum
that cleaners should be getting for the work they do, and we believe it
is a dignified profession and it needs be respected more than it is
and it should be paid for as the valuable service that it provides.
You have happy Taylor review, when can we save the government has dealt
with it?
-- you have had the.
It is an ongoing process, and there are
wider issues around the gig economy and the cleaning economy, many
different jobs, and the world of work is changing, and we don't want
to remove the flexibility that does work for employers and employees but
we also want to look at how we protect people in this new world of
work.
Work has changed very fast and sometimes employment legislation
hasn't kept up, so it's an ongoing dialogue, something at the top of
our agenda in government and I'm advocating for it.
You would say what we have uncovered in this
particular case is a one-off or very possibly happening quite often?
It is probably not a one-off, but it is
very rare for the London living wage accredited people to be experiencing
this.
In terms of the sector as a whole, they are injustices all the
time and that is why we are here in business and doing what we are
doing.