“Drop the union and you can have your face masks,” outsourced cleaning company appears to tell low-paid workers at large London academy

A cleaning company has been risking the lives of children and staff at a high-profile London academy –which is overseen by wealthy hedge fund figures - by only paying its workers statutory sick pay of less than �20 a day and until last week not giving them face masks, a union has claimed.

The warning comes with the union also pointing to recordings of conversations it says were between a company manager and one of the workers, which appear to suggest that the cleaners would have more of a chance of receiving masks if they walked away from their union.

The union now says it will take both the cleaning company and the academy itself to court, with a ballot on industrial action also looming.

The company has told this website that it had been following government guidance which states that facemasks are not recommended in schools. However, masks had been provided from “early last week”. It also said that it is supportive of union membership, and that it was paying statutory sick pay as set out by the government.

The allegations concern an outsourced contract for cleaning at Ark Globe Academy in Southwark, south London, which the union says is the main mechanism by which this large school is being kept “hygienic” for pupils and staff during the coronavirus crisis.

Ark Globe Academy is run by the Ark Schools chain, which itself is part of the Absolute Return for Kids (Ark) charity which was set up by a group of hedge fund executives. The combined wealth of the two businessmen currently spearheading Ark and Ark Schools was put at £1.2 billion in last month’s Sunday Times Rich List.

Cleaning at the 1,600-pupil Ark Globe Academy, an “all through” school with primary and secondary sections, has been outsourced to the company Ridge Crest since earlier this year.

Pupils have been returning to the school over the past two weeks, with its twitter feed showing nursery and reception children back in classrooms last week, with year one and year six back on Monday this week and years 10 and 12 also on site.  

The union United Voices of the World (UVW) says that lowly-paid cleaning staff working there went on strike nearly two-weeks ago - on June 4^th and 5^th - with issues including unpaid wages or, as the union put it in a legal letter to the company, “Ridge Crest’s repeated failure to pay their wages in full and on time”.

One of the workers had been facing eviction from their home after getting behind on their rent because of underpayment of their wages, the union says. In the recordings, someone who appears to be a senior manager for Ridge Crest apologises several times for this.

But the payment of wages is just one of a string of complaints the union has over conditions for its members at the school. In its letter to Ridge Crest and to Matt Jones, principal of Ark Globe Academy (AGA), UVW warns of further action if a host of points are not addressed.

-The letter criticises the company for only providing workers with sick pay at the statutory minimum level: £19.17 per day. Traditionally*, this has only been accrued from the fourth day of absence.

It states that, at this level of payment “SSP [Statutory Sick Pay] does not provide workers with any real choice to take sick leave as no-one can make ends meet on under £20 a day.

“This means that your employees are currently faced with a choice between protecting their health and protecting their home…

“Furthermore, only paying SSP and refusing to commit to a no loss of occupational sick pay scheme during sickness and self-isolation is putting their health and the health of staff and students at risk, a danger that cannot be overstated.

“Protecting the children and young people of AGA must be the primary concern of all involved in the school’s activities, including its contractors. We therefore request that the cleaners are offered an occupational sick pay scheme that guarantees them no loss of pay for a period to be agreed between ourselves.”

It added: “Unless workers have a real choice as to whether to take sick leave – which they do not if they know they will not be paid – then they will come into work when sick. During the deadly and highly contagious Covid-19 pandemic, this literally puts their life and those of others at risk.”

The letter then cites reports of comments by Professor Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, last month that there had been 75 to 100 cases of children contracting a “Kawasaki-like disease” which could be linked to coronavirus. UVW’s letter points out that an outbreak of this disease had been centred on Evelina Children’s Hospital, which was “not more than a mile from AGA”.

The letter added: “A notable feature of the reported outbreak was that 75% of those admitted were of Afro-Caribbean origin, which is consistent with the general health inequality in the virus effect being felt worst in BAME [black, Asian and minority ethnic] and deprived communities.

“This should be of particular concern to AGA considering around 90% of the school’s students are from a BAME background.”

-UVW says its members have been cleaning the school without having face masks provided by their employer. Its letter said: “The cleaners currently do not receive face masks from Ridge Crest, despite repeated requests. This refusal not only puts them at heightened risk of contracting or transmitting the deadly Covid-19 coronavirus, but also breaches [personal protection at work] regulations and government and scientific guidance.”

It cites World Health Organisation advice from April stating that wearing a face mask could limit the spread of Covid-19. From this week, face masks have been compulsory on UK public transport, although as mentioned above the government says they are not recommended for use in schools.

-The union says that the cleaners, all or most of whom are immigrants with countries including Nigeria, Barbados, Lithuania and Ecuador represented, are on the national minimum wage of £8.72 an hour. UVW described this as “poverty wages” and called on the company to increase it to what is billed as the London Living Wage: £10.75 an hour.

-The union’s recordings appear to be of a senior figure at Ridge Crest making a string of comments to a representative of the cleaners that they should move away from involvement with their union.

Several times, a link is made between the cleaners backing away from their union and face masks being provided. It appears that the workers were also being told that they would need to back away from union activity to have a chance of being paid the London Living Wage, though this could not happen until January because “budgets are obviously not allowed for it for this year”.

In one of the comments, the individual said by UVW to be a Ridge Crest manager tells someone who appears to be a staff member: “If you guys feel safer and comfortable with masks, and it means everybody goes back and gets rid of the union [and] we go back to being a nice, civil environment and everything’s OK, then, yeah, I can get some masks there to you Tuesday at the latest.”

In a second conversation, the worker is asked: “Is it now the case that the unions are now not going to be involved and we can get the face masks and everything in for Tuesday and get working with…Ark to get you guys paid at the London Living Wage?”

The worker is also told: “If we move forward, get rid of the union, we can fight together, with Ridge Crest and Ark, to get that pay rise in January…I just want to shut the union down and work together with Ridge Crest and Ark to get you the pay rise that you deserve…all the union is going to do is cause a lot of trouble and make Ark hate us a lot more than they already do.”

The recordings appear to suggest that Ark itself might not be keen on union involvement in the case, either, with the worker told: “Ark are going to get annoyed if the unions are involved. It’s just going to get their back up…it looks better if we get rid of the unions.”

This, said UVW in its letter, amounted to “trade union victimisation”.  UVW’s letter said it was an illegal attempt to deter employees from being or becoming members of the union.

It added: “[These] comments describe a visceral dislike of trade unions from both Ridge Crest and AGA…the failure to provide masks…shows a callous and negligent disregard for the health and well being of the cleaners. However, the refusal to provide masks on request, and then to offer them only on condition that they ‘get rid of the union’ is chilling and potentially criminal.

“In other words, Ridge Crest has asked the cleaner to choose between their health and their human rights.”

It also stated that the company does not currently recognise a trade union in relation to the school’s cleaners.

Outsourcing itself was illegal, union arguing

In what it said could be a landmark legal challenge, the union is also poised to argue that the academy’s outsourced cleaning arrangements are illegal. The case would rest on UVW arguing that the terms and conditions for the cleaners were worse than they would have been had Ark Schools employed them directly, rather than through a cleaner, and that this arrangement amounted to a form of indirect racial discrimination, since the cleaners were all “foreign-born nationals and/or BAME”.

The letter added: “The decision to outsource all your BAME cleaners on inferior pay and [conditions] completely undermines AGA’s commitment to inclusion which your website states is understood as follows:

“‘Inclusion is a sense of belonging: feeling respected, valued for who you are; feeling a level of supportive energy and commitment from others so that you can do your best work.’”

The union has pointed to a similar legal battle it recently started with the Royal Parks over the pay and conditions of its toilet cleaners.

The union had given both Ridge Crest and Ark a deadline of last Friday afternoon to respond to its letter. It said both had done so, but neither to its satisfaction. UVW said it would now declare a formal trade dispute, ballot its members for industrial action, take Ridge Crest to court for what it said was trade union victimisation and take Ark Globe to court for discriminating against its cleaners on grounds of race.

Responses

Ark had yet to respond by the time this article was published, but has now done so. Its statement is published at length at the end of this piece.

Simon Wrenn, director of Ridge Crest, replied that the terms and conditions the company’s cleaners were under at AGA were the same as before the contract with the company had begun, earlier this year.

He said: “All of our cleaning team members at Ark Globe Academy are paid in line with the TUPE [Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)] terms and conditions on which they were transferred to Ridge Crest earlier this year, including those who are in receipt of the statutory requirements for sick pay as set out by the government.

“Ridge Crest has been following the government guidance on face coverings which states that ‘wearing a face covering or face mask in schools or other education settings is not recommended.’ Because of this guidance we have not been routinely issuing masks. However, following a request by team members at Ark Globe Academy on Friday 5 June, masks were provided and have been available for use since early last week (week commencing 8/6/20).

“All cleaning team members are being paid in line with the terms and conditions on which they TUPE transferred to Ridge Crest earlier this year. Discussions have been had in relation to the London Living Wage, but no announcement has yet been made. As a Living Wage Recognised Service Provider, Ridge Crest are committed to introducing the Living Wage to as many of its cleaning team members as possible.

“Ridge Crest are supportive of union membership and work constructively with trade unions.”

There was no direct response to the union’s claim that the low level of sick pay might give cleaners little choice but to come into work even if they unwell, potentially exposing children and staff there to the virus.

Wealthy backgrounds of those in control of Ark and Ark Schools

As Education Uncovered reported, last month’s Sunday Times Rich List, which ranks the wealthiest 1,000 people in the UK, featured three influential trustees of either Ark or Ark Schools.

Sir Paul Marshall and Ian Wace, who between them set up the hedge fund Marshall Wace, were each listed with personal wealth of £630 million, which in each case was an increase of £40 million from the previous year. Sir Paul is Chair of Ark Schools, while Wace is chair of Ark itself.

Sir Paul is a former lead non-executive director at the Department for Education, has been chairman of the Education Policy Institute think tank, has been a backer of Brexit and gave £10,000 to Michael Gove’s Tory leadership campaign last year.

Lord Fink, another financier who rose to fame through the hedge fund industry and who is a former Conservative Party treasurer, is a trustee of both Ark and Ark Schools. His wealth was listed at £160m by the Sunday Times.

*During the coronavirus crisis, statutory sick pay can be paid from the first day of work missed. However, UVW says this is only for people who are self-isolating because they live with someone who has Covid-19, or who is “shielding”, or who have been notified by the NHS or Public Health England that they have come into contact with someone with Covid-19. Also, the union says anyone earning less than £120 a week gross – including some of the cleaners at the Ark school who are part-time – will be paid nothing if they miss work, even if they have Covid-19 or have been told to self-isolate.

UPDATE: Ark has just sent the following statement:

 

The safety and welfare of all Ark staff, students and all onsite contractors is paramount, it is something on which no Ark school would compromise.  In preparation for re-opening, all schools carried out extensive and rigorous risk assessments so that they could put in place the measures needed to ensure it is as safe as it can be for staff and students to return to school.

Ark Globe has been in regular contact with senior management from Ridge Crest.   The Ridge Crest employees have raised some significant concerns, and the school has made it clear to Ridge Crest that it is their hope that the issues are all resolved fairly and in a timely manner. The school has been advised by Ridge Crest that they are engaging constructively with their employees and that they hope to reach a satisfactory resolution with their staff in the very near future…

Despite stretched school budgets, Ark is working with its contractors to find ways for them to pay their employees the Real Living Wage, those reviews are ongoing and it’s hoped they will be satisfactorily concluded soon.

Ark Schools has a proactive and positive working relationship with numerous unions. It has trade union recognition agreements with the NAHT, ASCL, Unite, GMB, Unison, NEU and NASUWT.  These unions are recognised as representing the staff body for the purposes of informing and consulting the workforce regarding the terms and conditions for staff in academies.

Consultation and negotiation take place on two levels.  At national level, consultation on terms and conditions takes place through the national joint council (NJC) which usually meets once a term.  At a school level, consultation and negotiation takes place through the school’s joint council (JCC).  These also usually meet once a term.  The NJC deals with issues of relevance across the network such as the pay and conditions framework and network-wide policies.  JCCs deal with local, school-level issues.  The frequency of engagement has increased significantly during the pandemic.

It is not possible for Ark to recognise the UVW.   Trade Union recognition operates between relevant unions and employers in relation to groups of worker’s pay and conditions.  In this situation, the relevant staff are employees of Ridge Crest and therefore, any recognition agreement would need to be between the union and the employer, which is Ridge Crest.  Ark Globe would be supportive of such a union recognition agreement being put in place.