Case study: Outsourcing (IWGB)

We asked strikers to tell us their personal experiences of the themes of the strike. Below, we share the story of one of our colleagues in IWGB, which represents the cleaners, security guards and porters at UCL. You can read about their dispute with UCL management in this post, and by using the tag 'iwgb'. UCU members stand together with our colleagues in IWGB - come to our joint rally today at 10:30 am on Gower Street!

I feel marginalised, disregarded, mistreated and unimportant

Sadly, my experiences of outsourcing at UCL are negative to say the least. I’ve been working at UCL for 5 and a half years and have never received occupational sick pay, no parental leave and receive low pay. I feel marginalised, disregarded, mistreated and unimportant by the management of this university. The fact that they can’t treat me equally with the same rights and respect as directly employed staff (and refuse to truly acknowledge my appalling working conditions) shows just how unworthy they think I am. When I’m late for a few minutes my pay is deducted, however when they have no break relief officers I’m expected to be patient. It has happened on several occasions when I was late for 2 or 3 minutes to work and they deducted from my pay at the end of the month. And it has happened several times when no break relief officer came for my lunch break and I worked a full 12-hour shift without a single break. However, I was told to understand and be patient when I complained! When my wife gave birth in late 2017, I needed to take 2 weeks off to help with the new-born and the time when I most needed money, that’s when I received my lowest pay. I was paid an amount that was really, laughable. £240 for two weeks!! Yet, despite such awful conditions, UCL, which is one of the richest universities around and a global institution continues to happily tolerate this type of treatment, to which I refer as ‘cooperate slavery.’