Royals asked to back living wage for cleaners


10:40 am - April 28th 2011

by Newswire    


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Royal watchers will be asked by the Public and Commercial and Services union to support a campaign to pay cleaners in the Royal Household a living wage.

The union will be outside the gates to Buckingham Palace from 12 noon to 2pm today (28 Apr) with a giant ‘fair pay for royal cleaners’ card for members of the public to sign.

Cleaners in Buckingham Palace, St James’s Palace and Clarence House who are paid just £6.45 an hour are campaigning for an increase to the ‘London living wage’ of £7.85 an hour.

The London living wage, introduced by previous Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and endorsed by current mayor Boris Johnson, is paid to cleaners in the houses of parliament.

The royal cleaners are employed by two private contractors, KGB Holdings and Greenzone, but the union believes ultimate responsibility rests with the Royal Household, which receives around £30 million a year from taxpayers – half of which is for upkeep of the occupied palaces.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said:

As the royals prepare for the prince’s lavish wedding on Friday, our members are being treated like paupers.

The royal family is seen as a major contributor to the tourist industry and many people visit London specifically to see the palaces. We’ll be asking them to show their support for the people on poverty pay who keep these palaces clean.

From a press release

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Reader comments


1. Watchman

The royal cleaners are employed by two private contractors, KGB Holdings and Greenzone, but the union believes ultimate responsibility rests with the Royal Household, which receives around £30 million a year from taxpayers – half of which is for upkeep of the occupied palaces.

Well, if you want to take on the KGB…

But this does show some of what is wrong with the unions – the issue of pay is one for the contractors. The Royal Household could in future insist on contractors paying more, but note that this would perhaps require a more expensive contract, and thus higher costs to taxpayers for the upkeep of occupied palaces. The Unions (are they representing members here?) do seem to have an odd view of what happens if you put wages up.

2. tim f

#1

Actually unions have found it’s very difficult to put pressure directly on contractors to raise wages & the most effective way of raising wages is to embarrass their paymasters (for whom cleaning is a proportionately small part of their budget) into getting all contractors to sign a deal to negotiate wage levels collectively. If you go for the contractors directly, their costs go up, the paymaster gets another contractor in who pays the same workers on the original, low. wage. This is a successful strategy which has worked elsewhere (including in financial institutions in London). It’s not “the problem with the unions”, it’s smart campaigning.

If it results in a slightly more expensive contract, is that such a problem? Should the taxpayer be paying sub-living wage in the first place? (If your concern is saving money, how about the royals clean their own house.)


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  2. Lee Hyde

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  3. Deokhee

    ????? ??? ?? ???? ??? £6.45 ?? London living wage? £7.85? ?? ?? @libcon Royal asked to back living wage for cleaners http://bit.ly/klTium

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  6. KGB Cleaners? At Buckingham Palace?

    […] ‘avin a larf, ain’t they? The royal cleaners are employed by two private contractors, KGB Holdings and […]

  7. Josiah Mortimer

    Royals asked to back living wage for cleaners http://t.co/QeUFNAO via @libcon

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    RT @libcon: Royal asked to back living wage for cleaners http://bit.ly/klTium





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