FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
[Date: 7 October 2026]
WE KEEP THE CITY RUNNING: UVW launches campaign spotlighting exploitation of London’s essential workers
- Workers who keep London running are too often paid poverty wages, outsourced, denied secure employment and subjected to discrimination, union-busting and other forms of exploitation.
- United Voices of the World Union, UVW is launching its new “We Keep the City Running” campaign on World Day for Decent Work, putting London’s essential workers at the centre of the debate about work, migration and workers’ rights.
- The campaign will bring together research, workers’ stories and mobilisation around demands including bringing outsourced workers back in-house, decent employment standards, the right to organise and firewalls between workers’ rights and immigration enforcement.
- UVW will draw on the first-hand experiences of cleaners, security workers, care workers, hospitality workers and NHS workers across London to show what exploitation looks like on the ground for them and their families.
- UVW is calling on other trade unions, migrant rights organisations, community organisations, campaigners and advocates to join the campaign and develop a Migrant Essential Worker Charter.
- UVW says migrant workers should not be viewed simply as vulnerable people in need of protection: they are workers who organise, fight back and build collective power.
- A new Migrant Worker Exploitation Report will also document workers’ experiences and expose patterns of exploitation across sectors including cleaning, services and the NHS.
From the cleaners opening our hospitals in the early hours, to the security workers protecting private and public spaces, the housekeepers keeping hotels operating, the care workers looking after our communities and the hospitality workers keeping London fed — essential workers are everywhere.
Yet their work is too often invisible, undervalued and exploited.
Across UVW’s organising and casework, workers report poverty wages, insecure employment, outsourcing, discrimination, union-busting and abuse. For migrant workers, immigration status can add another layer of vulnerability, making it harder to challenge exploitation or speak out.
UVW is launching We Keep the City Running to bring these experiences together with new research, workers’ voices and collective action. The campaign will document the reality of migrant workers’ lives across London and expose the systems that allow essential work to be treated as disposable.
Nelly Ospino, UVW General Secretary said: “London could not function without the workers we are talking about. We clean its hospitals, care for its people, secure its public spaces, run its hotels and feed its workers. Yet too many of us are expected to survive on poverty wages and insecure jobs while the companies and institutions we work for benefit from our labour.
This is not about asking for charity or pity. It is about power, rights and dignity at work. Migrant workers organise, British-born workers organise — and when we organise together, we can change things. We are one working class.”
The campaign will be rooted in UVW’s close proximity to essential workers and the workplaces where exploitation happens.
The campaign will aim to produce a Migrant Essential Worker Charter, demanding decent employment standards for the workers who provide essential services, including living wages, sick pay, paid holidays, pension rights, safe working conditions, protection from discrimination and the right to organise.
The exploitation of migrant workers is not a separate issue from the wider crisis facing working people. Outsourcing, low pay, insecure work and attacks on trade union rights affect working-class communities across London.
The answer is not to divide workers against one another.
Migrant workers are often talked about as vulnerable people who need protecting. We want to change that narrative. Migrant workers are workers. We organise, we fight back and we win. And when migrant workers win better conditions, it strengthens the position of every worker.
UVW is asking sister unions, migrant rights organisations, community campaigns and everyone who believes in decent work to stand with us. We keep this city running. Together, we have the power to make it work for us.
The campaign will produce a Migrant Worker Exploitation Report, documenting workers’ experiences and identifying patterns of exploitation across sectors including cleaning, services and the NHS. The research will put workers’ voices at the centre — showing not simply that exploitation exists, but what it means for workers, their families and communities.
ENDS
Notes to editors
United Voices of the World (UVW) is a grassroots trade union representing predominantly migrant workers across London and beyond. UVW organises workers across sectors including cleaning, hospitality, services, healthcare, education and other essential services.
Campaign: We Keep the City Running
Core message: WE KEEP THE CITY RUNNING. NOW MAKE IT WORK FOR US.
Campaign page: /en/campaigns/we-run-the-city/
For further information, contact the UVW communications team:
Cristina: 07548 759340
Isabel: 07706 987443
Email: comms@uvwunion.org.uk