London Met UNISON has secured an agreement from the university management to uprate the London Living Wage (LLW) with immediate effect and backdated to November.
The new rate for the LLW is now £8.55 per hour (increased from £8.30 per hour), and will be paid to all in-house and contracted-out staff who are on site at London Met.
UNISON fought for and secured the LLW at London Met in 2010-11 and, since then, has won further improvements for cleaning and catering staff who are now unionised.
The union has also organised two rounds of ESOL classes for speakers of other languages, many of whom are migrant workers lacking English.
Luis Alfredo Cuellar, a UNISON rep for the London Met cleaners, said: “This is great news for our members, who have been getting organised over the last couple of years since we won the living wage, and we’ve been working hard to secure dignity and fairness in our workplace since.
“The cost of living in London continues to go up fast and it’s extremely difficult to make ends meet when you are on such a low-paid job.
“We have a long way to go before we have the equal terms and conditions – such as sick pay and improved annual leave – but a pay rise at this time is very welcome news.”
UNISON activist Hyacintha Emmanuel said: “On behalf of the catering staff, we want to thank UNISON very much for this negotiated pay rise – it is very much appreciated”.
London Met Uni UNISON branch has over 400 members, including cleaners, catering staff and also outsourced security guards, many of whom are in low-paid jobs working across three sites.
