Danny Millum on employment rights for all
Norbey Urreste is an Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) member currently taking his former employer, a large cleaning company, to court for constructive dismissal. Here Danny Millum, of the IWGB, writes about the Union’s experience of the violations of basic employment rights of Norbey and others.
A modern UK workplace?
In his time with the company, Norbey, who is originally from Colombia, suffered treatment that seems beyond belief in a modern UK workplace: the unlawful deduction of wages, endless arbitrary management decisions, and abusive and rude treatment from managers.
However, for many IWGB members working for outsourced cleaning companies these experiences are the norm, not the exception.
Routinely workers who do not speak English are exploited by bilingual supervisors and managers, who use their underlings’ ignorance of the language and the law to deny them the sickness and holiday pay they are entitled to, to illegally deduct money from their wages and to arbitrarily vary their working hours. Those who complain face abuse, bullying and disciplinary action enforced without regard to company policy or employment law. The IWGB has represented literally hundreds of members in cases of this sort — where workers have been openly racially abused, where pregnant women have been humiliated and offered redundancy rather than maternity leave, where employees working 3 jobs and enduring 18 hour days have not been paid for months.
In nearly all these cases a complaint prompts not an apology and the resolution of the issue, but instead further abuse, including instant dismissal. (It should be borne in mind that these circumstances are not arising in underground sweatshops, but in places of employment like Russell Group universities!)
This is a violation of basic employment rights. And the silver lining is that these cases can be fought and won.
A legal resolution
These companies can be held to account, and those who have suffered can achieve justice by taking legal action, if all else fails. What requires is a strong union prepared to back up its members, and the financial resources to allow it to do so given current employment tribunal charges. The IWGB has the infrastructure, the know-how and the caseworkers, but we desperately need help through the likes of CrowdJustice to enable us to bring eminently winnable cases such as those of Norbey to court and achieve justice.
Read more about Norbey’s case here!
UPDATE 2 December: Norbey’s case was over-funded in less than 24 hours.
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