If you are wondering what the protest outside the station is about today, then wonder no more. ISS, a company that provides a range of services including corporate cleaning, pays it’s staff minimum wage. This is currently £6.19 per hour. The current lowest living wage for Londoners is £8.30 per hour. The cleaners protesting outside King’s Cross station today are being paid minimum wage – a situation they share with many thousands of workers across the capital.
Boris Johnson, Mayor of London has said, “Paying the London Living Wage is not only morally right, but makes good business sense too.”
For some cleaners at King’s Cross this low pay scandal has gone on for 11 years as no wage rises, aside from the few pence increase in the Government’s minimum wage, has been paid to them in that time. Additionally ISS does not issue it’s East Coast rail cleaners with employment contracts – a common problem for cleaning staff. Yet ISS is one of the biggest facilities companies in the world with a turnover in the billions of pounds.
If you would like to support the ISS cleaners and the principle of a living wage, make sure your employer, or your company if you are an employer, is registered with the Living Wage Foundation.
