On Guardian website today: Cleaners at prestigious UK girls’ school [JAGS] vote to strike over cut in hours

[IlonaM]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jul/14/cleaners-at-james-allens-girls-school-vote-to-strike-cut-in-hours

'Cleaners at prestigious UK girls’ school vote to strike over cut in hours

James Allen’s girls’ school in London faces industrial action by members of union for low-paid migrant workers'

[Kathleen Olander]

There have been strikes taking place there for weeks.  No idea what it's about as the banners are incomprehensible from a bus.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

Pretty terrible that JAGS's cleaning contractor isn't paying its workers the London Living Wage already. How does that fit with the JAGS value of championing social awareness and sustainability inside and outside the classroom?

https://www.uvwunion.org.uk/en/

https://www.jags.org.uk/welcome/vision-mission-aims/

https://livingwage.org.uk/what-real-living-wage

[vladi]

Unintended consequences of proposed VAT on  private education?

[malumbu]

Assume that was a joke

[Monkey]

The fact they’re pegging the London Living Wage to staff accepting the cut in number of working weeks is particularly callous and so,so, so wrong.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

1 hour ago, vladi said:

Unintended consequences of proposed VAT on  private education?

"A Jags spokesperson said: “...These developments have nothing to do with VAT on school fees...”

1 hour ago, malumbu said:

Assume that was a joke

Nope - they have form for blaming everything on introduction of VAT (that won't happen for at least another year).

 

Edited July 14 by Dogkennelhillbilly

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

Has anyone heard if this has been resolved yet? The last news from the union was the cleaning contractor had actually CUT wages by 12% following the dispute.

Apparently these cleaners are making just 11p per hour above the UK legal minimum wage - how can anyone live on that in London?

https://www.uvwunion.org.uk/en/campaigns/cleaners-fight-pay-cuts-at-prestigious-jags-private-school/

[Kathleen Olander]

The cleaners are employed by DBS not JAGS.  DBS are a massive company and clean all sorts of buildings all over London and the South, their website says  "We believe in providing our staff members with ongoing training and a fair wage ensuring that they are best placed to service our client’s buildings to a high standard on a daily basis."

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

Interesting article in the paper today about the precarious and hard nature of this kind of work. JAGS and other facilities owners typically don't employ their own cleaning staff - instead they wash their hands of the arrangements by outsourcing them to agencies. It's the agencies that hire and fire the cleaners - but often acting at the direction of the clients...

The same union that is representing the cleaners at JAGS represented the cleaner dismissed for "stealing" an abandoned tuna sandwich from a law firm's meeting room:

"In London, Rodriguez joined the tens of thousands of Latin American migrants who have made their home in the capital in recent decades, a high proportion of whom work in the contract cleaning and facilities management sector. The work was hard, and her employment structures fiendishly complicated, involving multiple outsourcing companies, third-party recruitment agencies and byzantine lines of management and responsibility. On a typical day, she would leave her flat in Streatham, south London, at 6am and service at least three different sites across the city, often not returning home until midnight; pay was always at or very close to the minimum wage. But in the course of her labours, Rodriguez found herself playing a vital role at the core of some of the country’s most famous institutions, from flagship fashion outlets to the House of Commons, where she worked for four years. She and her colleagues sometimes felt like Britain’s skeleton: an unseen but indispensable support structure without which nothing else could stand upright."

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/aug/03/the-cleaner-sacked-for-eating-a-tuna-sandwich

[Rockets]

Going  to get worse now due to VAT on private school fees as schools like JAGs will be looking to cut costs - expect this sort of approach across the board now. 

[jazzer]

Well just perhaps its overall cheaper and less hassle to outsource than employ cleaners directly who do it for the "money" and as such do the bare minimum.  

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

That's a weird comment. Presumably the Head, the Director of Finance and the Director of Operations are all directly employed by JAGS instead of being outsourced. Do they only do it for the money and as such do the bare minimum?

 

As JAGS outsourced their cleaners far in advance of the election (let alone the introduction of VAT, which still doesn't even have a firm date set) and JAGS has explicitly said it's nothing to do with VAT, I think we can safely conclude that VAT on private schools is totally irrelevant to the subject.

[malumbu]

In deed, odd that there are apologists for private schools that appear happy to not pay some staff appropriately.

[Kathleen Olander]

11 minutes ago, malumbu said:

In deed, odd that there are apologists for private schools that appear happy to not pay some staff appropriately.

Well I am not an apologist for JAGS, just stating a fact that they are employed by DBS, and it is they that should pay their staff more and give them more hours if they want them!

[Penguin68]

Outsourcing is always a legitimate option when sourcing skills outside your core competences/ core business. JAGS is in the education, not the cleaning, business and might assume a specialist cleaning company might be better at cleaning, and managing cleaners, than they are. They may also benefit from economies of scale not available to JAGS.

As their chosen supplier is unable to provide continuous cleaning services (because their workers are unhappy with their working conditions, obviously including pay) then JAGS should outsource elsewhere - clearly they will not be paying their outsourcer, I assume, for services they are not receiving. 

You choose outsourcers where they have competitive edge over insourced services, be that cost, quality or innovation. Those costs would include the outsourced costs of management and not (just, or indeed even) staff wages.

For schools, cleaning needs fall away significantly during holidays - outsourcers may be able to re-allocate staff away from schools to other paid for work during holidays in a way that schools cannot.

But, as others have noted, if JAGS is not the direct employer of those striking then it can hardly be held directly responsible for the strike.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

2 hours ago, Penguin68 said:

Outsourcing is always a legitimate option when sourcing skills outside your core competences/ core business. JAGS is in the education, not the cleaning, business...

...and yet in addition to employing teachers, it also employs accountants, marketing people, maintenance people, security people, operations and contracts managers and a bunch of other people outside its "core competence" of education. 🤔 

If JAGS were (as it claims) legitimately committed to championing social awareness and sustainability inside and outside the classroom, then it would be simple to insist its outsourcers paid their labourers the London Living Wage, for example. This is a common provision in contracts where supply chain workers are at a high risk of exploitation.

[vladi]

1 hour ago, Dogkennelhillbilly said:

...and yet in addition to employing teachers, it also employs accountants, marketing people, maintenance people, security people, operations and contracts managers and a bunch of other people outside its "core competence" of education. 🤔 

 

Do  you actually know the basis on which JAGS "employs" ( as you state)  or contracts out the services of  "accountants, marketing people, maintenance people, security people, operations and contracts managers and a bunch of other people outside its core competence of education"? OR are you just speculating?

If JAGS utilises a contractor to provide cleaning services then the responsibilities for the terms of employment of the individual cleaners is the contractors responsibilities. End of...

 

[malumbu]

Virtually anyone who has worked in a large office has seen the impact of outsourcing back office functions - facilities, reception, security and the like.  High turn over of low paid staff with little loyalty to the organisation.  Saves the organisation money of course.....

[Jenijenjen]

9 hours ago, malumbu said:

Saves the organisation money of course.....

Exactly. Any outsourcing company acts on the instructions and requirements of their clients, which may include cutting costs, so JAGS are not blameless. It is within their power to resolve the current dispute but chose to hide behind the outsourcing company instead.

[Penguin68]

2 hours ago, Jenijenjen said:

Exactly. Any outsourcing company acts on the instructions and requirements of their clients, which may include cutting costs, so JAGS are not blameless.

It is quite unlikely that JAGS is able to alter the fee scales or terms of employment paid to employees of a different company. They could reduce the amount of work required so as to reduce costs, as they cold require cheaper materials to be used - but in each case the outsourcer would then wish to alter the performance metrics of the contract.

Cleaning staff formerly employed by JAGS who then moved to the new contractor would be covered by TUPE terms, giving them some protections. Over time the effect of that protection will clearly dissipate.

It is not directly in the power of one employer to alter the terms and condition of employment of another. Indeed they have in general no say as to which employees of the contractor work on their contract (there may be specific exceptions to this - for instance excluding a contractor who they believe is dishonest or disruptive).

Their only real power would be to dismiss the contractor for non performance of contract on the basis that the staff are on strike, but that would not, in and of itself, change the position of the staff contracted. Breaking the contract terms in this way might have legal (and hence cost) implications.

[Jenijenjen]

We don't know the terms of the contract, it could well be that the outsourcing company has broken the contract by their actions. The contract will be for a set time and JAGS could easily bring pressure to bear by making it known that the contract will not be renewed unless certain conditions are met now. As the Guardian article demonstrates, outsourcing companies behave unilaterally without reference to the client though claiming they are following the client's instructions. The article also shows that action by the client is able to reverse decisions by the outsourcing company not in keeping with the client's standards.

[malumbu]

I'm not in a world where I send kids to a private school but I'd like to think that I would do my research first on their social credentials.  I expect that most do some genuine good for their community but no doubt there is the equivalent of green washing too.  It's stark that someone who sends say three kids to private school will be spending over twice what a cleaner gets paid 

But I'm not speaking from experience.  We all speculate bit it's rare that those with real experience post.

 

[Penguin68]

9 minutes ago, malumbu said:

It's stark that someone who sends say three kids to private school will be spending over twice what a cleaner gets paid 

JAGS senior school fees (from September) are £24,543 a year; to pay for 3 children would thus cost £73,629. Half of that is £36,814 - which for a 40 hour week and 4 weeks holiday would equate to £19 an hour. The London living wage is £13.15. However 3 is nowadays quite a large family size, 2 I would think is more common for the JAGS parents' demographic.

I very much doubt whether JAGS cleaners are getting offered a 40 hour week, or working 48 weeks a year - certainly whilst working in JAGS. And I'm sure they are not being paid 46% over the London living wage hourly amount.

Whilst you should expect companies (and that includes private schools) to exercise some social responsibility, that cannot be (I would guess) across all areas they operate, nor would you expect them to jeopardise their core business mission on the altar of general social responsibility. You may argue that, through outsourcing, they have also outsourced that element of their social responsibility to an external contractor, and that they could have made that also a part of their contract, but I suspect that it too sophisticated for what are actually still quite naive business practitioners. And probably that would not be an enticing contract to even bid for.

[Jenijenjen]

37 minutes ago, Penguin68 said:

You may argue that, through outsourcing, they have also outsourced that element of their social responsibility to an external contractor, and that they could have made that also a part of their contract, but I suspect that it too sophisticated for what are actually still quite naive business practitioners.

I doubt they are so naive to be party to such a large contract without their lawyer's input who are not so naive.