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28.03.2024 / News / GOSH / Justice for Cleaners

Cleaners continue their epic battle against historic racial discriminatory outsourcing at Great Ormond Street Hospital in legal appeal

UVW cleaner members at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) are continuing their epic legal battle against historic racially discriminatory outsourcing at the London famous children’s hospital. Today, a year after a tribunal heard their arguments, they have appealed the court’s ruling in their quest to obtain compensation for historic indirect race discrimination. If they win the case, their lives could be forever changed and potentially end the unscrupulous practice of outsourcing in the National Health Service (NHS).

During 10 days of marathonian hearings last year, the group of 80 Black, brown and migrant cleaners laid bare the reality of the structural inequality that they had faced for years while they were outsourced to private contractors. Before they were brought in-house, the UVW cleaner members, who are majoritarily Black, brown and migrant, didn’t enjoy the same generous terms and conditions of other hospital workers, majoritarily white. This inequality only stopped when the hospital agreed to bring them in house after UVW members voted to strike. The new terms weren’t given, they were fought for!

This is the first time a lawsuit of this type has been brought against an NHS Trust, where the workers are claiming compensation in excess of £10 million for the years they were denied NHS pay rates. The possible repercussions of this unprecedented claim are serious and the stakes are high for the entire UK outsourced workforce.

The battle continues!

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