Unions - Power of the Workers

Many multinationals around the world are now staffed by what amounts to a two-tier workforce. Employees enjoy protected employment advantages, while the outsourced people who keep the workspaces running – who clean them and keep them safe – often have more precarious roles with inferior terms and conditions. Cleaners, security guards and catering staff at multinational companies, universities, hospitals and other big organisations are often employed by other companies.

The two-tier system means the balance of power at outsourcing firms is firmly in favour of the client: they won’t want to lose a valuable customer. 

Client companies using outsourced workers often insist in contracts that they retain the right to request a worker be removed, said Molly De Dios of the United Voices of the World union, a large proportion of whose members work in the cleaning sector. And the clients use that right.

“Unfortunately, client requests for removal are very common,” said De Dios. The union has heard allegations about cleaning companies colluding with clients when they want to get rid of an outsourced worker for a spurious reason without repercussions.

United Voices of the World, which is currently involved in seven live disputes in the UK, fights to bring cleaners in-house. “Outsourcing is a complete farce, it shouldn’t exist at all – it’s terrible,” De Dios said. ‘“It leaves workers with fewer rights and it means the clients who are essentially the employer (because the cleaners are cleaning their site) aren’t legally responsible or liable for anything.” Outsourced workers are treated as a disposable and inferior workforce, said De Dios.