Pay up Mitie: Striking cleaners demand the pay that they are owed

NHS cleaners employed by private contractor Mitie in East Lancashire are striking to demand the pay that they deserve.

So far, the cleaners have taken six days of strike action. They are striking for the whole of this week. Today, the group met with UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea at UNISON Centre in London.

The 40 cleaners, contracted by Mitie, work across three hospitals run by The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust. Already among the lowest-paid staff in the NHS, they have been routinely underpaid for months, due to payroll problems, on top of which they have yet to receive their COVID-19 recovery payments, which were agreed in 2023.

The £1,655 COVID-19 recovery lump sum payment was part of the deal agreed by the government and health unions following strikes in the NHS. It was made in an effort to recognise the sustained pressure facing the health service. Tens of thousands of NHS staff have received the payment.

However, the hard-working cleaners employed by Mitie, who are essential to maintaining hygiene standards in hospitals, have received nothing.

Mitie continues to refuse to change its payroll systems and refuses to pay the lump sum. Instead, the cleaners have to contact their employer every month in order to fix Mitie’s pay processing errors.

One of the striking workers, who has worked at the trust for four years, received nothing in her Christmas pay packet last year due to Mitie’s errors.

“Christmas time when I got my wage, it said zero on it,” she said. “But I was owed over a thousand pounds.

“I was just gobsmacked, I’d done the work, but they hadn’t paid me anything. I got upset, because I had also been off sick at that time with anaemia.

“Its just so out of order not paying us. They have to resolve it. They have to resolve our pay.”

In negotiations with unions, the company has claimed the extra payment is unaffordable. However, a key point of contention in the dispute is that, while saying the payment is unaffordable, Mitie’s multimillionaire CEO Phil Bentley, known as ‘Miami Phil’, was paid £5.9m last year.

In his previous role as managing director of British Gas, Mr Bentley oversaw a 6% increase in fuel bills. As families across the UK were plunged into fuel poverty, he left the company with a package of £10m to go and work for Cable & Wireless Communications, based in Florida. He has been at the helm of Mitie since 2016.

The striking workers, most of whom are women, are experiencing extreme distress and many are reliant on UNISON to provide financial support so they can stay on top of their bills.

UNISON organiser Lindsay Bessell, who is supporting the striking workers, said: “The mental health impact on workers, who don’t know if they’re going to be paid or not, is severe. There’s one woman who has already tried to take her own life and who is now on long-term sick leave – she’s a single mother of a daughter. This doesn’t just affect our members, but their families as well.”

Speaking to the strikers on their visit to UNISON’s head office today, Christina McAnea said: “It takes a lot of guts and courage to do what you’re doing and I know it’s really not easy.

“This is very simple to resolve as far as UNISON is concerned. They’re in the wrong, and you’re in the right. You’re only asking for what you’re entitled to.”

During the meeting, UNISON deputy head of health Alan Lofthouse read out a statement of solidarity from the UNISON health service group executive, which said: “By standing up for yourselves, you are making it harder for employers like Mitie to continue to treat their staff with a complete lack of regard. Mitie will learn that UNISON members will not tolerate being undervalued and underpaid.”

The article Pay up Mitie: Striking cleaners demand the pay that they are owed first appeared on the UNISON National site.