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11.07.2024 / News / GOSH / Justice for Cleaners / SUPPORT THE GOSH SECURITY GUARDS

Round 2: GOSH cleaners vs racist outsourcing

The Employment Appeal Tribunal has accepted United Voices of the World (UVW) union appeal against Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). The brave UVW cleaners, all Black, brown, and migrant workers, seek £10 million for years of denied NHS pay, in the first claim of its kind against an NHS Trust for indirect race discrimination.The fight goes on!

In this case we argue that the outsourcing of a nearly all Black, brown and migrant group of cleaners on worse pay and T&C’s than the NHS – and then waiting over a year to bring them on to full NHS T&C’s after winning their campaign to be brought in-house – was unlawful indirect race discrimination. This follows UVW’s recent appeal to the Supreme Court in a similar claim against the Royal Parks.

For decades the cleaners were outsourced on lesser terms and conditions than other directly employed GOSH workers, which led to a dispute between UVW and GOSH in 2020 over the structural inequality the hospital workers have faced. In 2021, the GOSH cleaners forced the hospital to ditch its cleaning private contractor and employ them as NHS workers. The cleaners were brought in house in 2022 following a successful UVW campaign.

Contracts for NHS staff are governed by the 2004 Agenda for Change (AfC) which provides  much better conditions than privately outsourced workers. Now, the cleaners want  compensation for the years they were employed privately under inferior terms. If the court finds in favour of the workers, each claimant could be awarded between £80,000 and £190,000 each. 

Watch this space for updates!

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