United Voices of the World (UVW) is an independent grassroots trade union in the United Kingdom established in London in 2014.
Members of the union are mainly those in insecure work, such as low-wage workers in the 'gig economy' and outsourced industries. The union represents those working as cleaners, carers, couriers, bar staff, security guards, architects, designers, and charity workers. The UVW has a strong association with the Latin American community, with many members being immigrant workers from Latin America.
The UVW is seen as being much quicker to call strike and as more confrontational toward employers than larger and more traditional unions in the UK. Demonstrations held by the UVW are known for having a celebratory atmosphere.
While not affiliated to either the Trades Union Congress, or the Labour Party, the union has coordinated both with traditional unions, and other independent unions such as the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain, and the Industrial Workers of the World.
Formation The United Voices of the World union was founded on 6 January 2014.
Membership The UVW's members are typically employed in insecure and precarious low-wage employment, such as those working in the 'gig economy' and those working at outsourcing companies. The UVW consists of cleaners, carers, couriers, bar staff and security guards, as well as architects, designers/cultural workers, and workers from domestic/sexual violence organisations.
The membership of the union is largely made up of immigrant workers within places like London. Most of the UVW's members are originally from Latin America, with many being fluent speakers of Spanish and Portuguese. As of 2018, approximately 90% of the unions' membership were workers who had immigrated from Latin america, as well as from Africa and the West Indies.
The UVW hosts English language classes to improve its members English proficiency.
United Voices of the World supports sex workers' rights and states that it "fights for sex workers to get fair wages, sick pay and dignity".
Campaigning style
UVW in early years represented small groups of workers in disputes with global brands such as Sotheby's and Topshop, taking a radical, often experimental approach to organising precarious and migrant workers who felt shunned and under-served by established unions. More recently, UVW has been able to recruit larger numbers of members in workplaces such as hospitals and universities.
The UVW is distinguished from larger conventional trade unions in the UK by its more confrontational attitude. The union is quicker than traditional unions to call strikes, with its strikes often involving short work stoppages of several hundred employees that take place alongside protests designed to generate interest and exert public pressure on an employer. The union also does not pursue recognition agreements with employers, instead relying on higher-pressure strategies to bring bosses to negotiate.
Campaigns are characterised by noisy and disruptive pickets and protests, embracing diverse groups and the use of social media to attract further support. Demonstrations often have a party-like and celebratory atmosphere.
The UVW encourages collective self-relliance, with members listing their own griviences as well as planning and running their own campaigns autonomously. Instead of taking a leading role, UVW officials support and facilitate these member-led campaigns.
In 2019, UVW launched Legal Sector Workers United (LSWU), an initiative supported by Michael Mansfield.
Allied organisations The UVW operates as a part of an informal network of organisations within the autonomous left. The UVW cooperates with fellow independent unions such as the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain, and the Industrial Workers of the World, as well as with organisers from the London Renters Union, Women's Strike and Disabled People Against Cuts, the various Justice4Cleaners groups in universities and activists from groups such as Class War.
In 2021, Black Lives Matter UK awarded a grant of £15,000 to UVW. In 2020, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation granted UVW the funds to employ two full-time organisers to unionise the private childcare sector. Later in 2021, The Rosa Luxembourg Foundation coordinated the move of its offices, and other left-wing organisations including UVW, to an office block in East London.
Picket arrest of Franck Magennis Franck Magennis, a barrister then working for UVW as Head of Legal, was attending a peaceful picket with striking security guards outside St. George's medical school on the morning of January 13th 2020. A dozen Met police officers presented the crowd with a letter from St. George's requesting that they move the picket, and claimed that the picket was "an illegal nuisance on NHS property". As Magennis questioned that assertion, he was handcuffed and then released minutes later on the condition that he leave the area immediately.
The picket then dispersed, but returned the following morning and proceeded without resistance. In July 2020, a crowdfunder was launched to cover initial costs of legal action against the Met Police. Magennis and UVW claim the arrest was unlawful and an attempt to intimidate a legal picket.
Covid-19 pandemic During the COVID-19 pandemic, whilst many civil servants were told to work from home and isolate, the cleaners of civil service offices were classified as essential workers, and instructed to keep cleaning the central London offices. In April 2020, the UVW wrote to the Ministry of Justice and the cleaning company OCS, warning that workers were coming into work sick as they were unable to afford being on the lower statutory sick pay.
Emanuel Gomes, a cleaner and UVW member from Guinea Bissau, died on 24 April 2020 five hours after finishing a night shift at the Ministry of Justice. He had been sick for five days but continued to clean the deserted offices despite his agency bosses and all civil servants being absent. Emanuel's employer, OCS, had been unresponsive to safety concerns despite informing the cleaners that they were "essential workers" during the pandemic.
St. George's medical school, where UVW has been campaigning with security guards employed by Bidvest Noonan, announced in July 2020 that the guards would be entitled to 3 weeks of full sick pay, and full pay during self-isolation after a positive test result. Some security guards had previously walked off the job in protest of non-essential duties and visitors at a time when most students and management were self-isolating, and the lack of provision of PPE.
The 2022 Sue Gray report on the Partygate scandal said that government cleaners and security guards received a “lack of respect and poor treatment”.
Campaigns at hospitals
St. Mary's NHS Hospital Cleaners, porters and caterers at St. Mary's (and four other London hospitals managed by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust) were employed by Sodexo on the minimum wage (£8.21), significantly less than they would earn on corresponding NHS pay bands. They were also denied the sick pay, maternity pay, annual leave and pensions enjoyed by NHS staff.
In the final months of 2019, over 100 Sodexo workers at St. Mary's joined UVW. In total 10 days of strike action took place from late October to late November, then plans to strike in December were cancelled as Tom Orchard, CEO of Imperial NHS Trust, committed to negotiations to be concluded in January 2020. As Sodexo's contract was coming to an end, and with UVW threatening an "all-out" indefinite strike, it was announced at the end of January that over 1,000 Sodexo workers in five hospitals would be in-housed as NHS employees from April 2020.
Great Ormond Street NHS Hospital In the aftermath of the successful St. Mary's campaign, around 100 predominantly cleaners at GOSH employed by OCS joined UVW demanding to be in-housed as NHS employees. As with the Sodexo workers at St. Mary's Hospital, their contractual terms were significantly inferior to those of equivalent positions in the NHS.
Throughout 2020, the GOSH NHS Trust had refused to meet with the cleaners and UVW prepared to issue a strike ballot in November. UVW had also submitted a 45-page legal claim against outsourcing at GOSH, and threatened to include the Trust in a test case of alleged racial discrimination in breach of the Equality Act 2010. Petros Elia, an organiser of the campaign, wrote: "Most of these workers are Black, Brown, Asian and migrant and are deeply unhappy with a situation which sees them consciously paid less than their White in-house colleagues of a similar grade and denied NHS T&Cs such as full pay sick pay." A Freedom of Information (FoI) request by UVW revealed that GOSH held no records of any Equality Impact Assessment relating to its decision to outsource domestic services, which as part of its Public Sector Equality Duty and considering the clear racial aspect of the decision, it should have been very reasonably expected to undertake.
In December 2020, the GOSH NHS Trust announced that when OCS's services contract ends in mid-2021, some 200 OCS staff at GOSH would be offered NHS contracts. By September 2021, despite improvements in pay, sick pay and pension entitlements, the workers were still lacking the annual leave, maternity/paternity, and redundancy rights afforded to other NHS employees. With 120 cleaners again threatening to go on strike, GOSH pledged full equality in terms and conditions with NHS staff.
In December 2021, GOSH security guards employed by Carlisle Support Services went on strike for 3 days over the lack of sick pay, pension contributions, maternity pay, and other benefits enjoyed by all NHS staff. A six-week strike was planned for February/March 2002, but by mid-February an interim court injunction was preventing loud protests from occurring within 200 metres of the hospital. Jeremy Corbyn, who had attended a pre-injunction rally outside the hospital, demanded that GOSH bosses “stop wasting money on going to court, and negotiate.”
Campaigns at universities and schools
London School of Economics In late 2016, contested dismissals of cleaners employed by Noonan Services at the London School of Economics (LSE) escalated into a full-scale dispute for equality of rights to match those of LSE's in-house staff. Dozens of cleaners, all of ethnic minorities, faced significant disparities in paid annual leave, sick pay, paternity/maternity pay, and pension contributions when compared to LSE employees. They wore uniforms inscribed with both the name of the university and their employer, but had been instructed by Noonan's management to change out of uniform before using the university's fourth-floor cafeteria. They were subsequently assured by LSE management that the cafeteria was open to all customers, though the cleaners typically brought their own food and drink (and therefore would not be customers). Unlike in-house staff, had no common room or kitchen space to make use of.
Large campus protests and weekly strikes were organised by UVW in the summer of 2017, attracting much student support despite coinciding with the exam period. It was announced in June 2017, after a 10-month campaign, that around 200 outsourced workers at the LSE would be offered in-house contracts.
University of Greenwich Cafe workers serving the main lobby of Greenwich university joined UVW complaining of low pay, overworking and insufficient sick pay. They were all employees of Baxterstorey, which had been contracted to run the cafeteria. One chef working 80 hours a week had collapsed shortly after a typical day in intense kitchen heat, but returned to work the next morning because he couldn't afford to skip a single shift. All of his colleagues were to become UVW members, and as they announced their campaign, Baxterstorey immediately raised their pay by 50p to £9.75 an hour.