Justice for Cleaners! was the clear message to the management at SOAS from the lunchtime protest by cleaners, staff and students. The School of Oriental and African Studies has a worldwide reputation which ill accords with treating any of the staff who work there as dirt, but that’s how the cleaners feel they are treated. The SOAS management keeps its own hands clean by bringing in a contract cleaning firm to do their dirty work, and cleaners are paid below the level needed to live on in London, and allege they are badly treated by the ISS management.
As well as the London Living Wage they want to have the same kind of provision for pensions, sick pay and holiday pay that SOAS pays other workers on the same site, and for SOAS to take them back under it’s management – ‘in house.’ Two of those who spoke at the rally were from Ecuador, and one of them, I think in that country’s diplomatic service, said that they now had social justice laws in Ecuador that made the kind of ‘outsourcing’ arrangement that SOAS have with ISS illegal. The only way outsourcing ever ‘works’ is by cutting the level of service provided and/or cutting the wages and conditions of the workers.
We saw it clearly when I worked in education and the cleaning was outsourced. Some of the cleaners who had previously worked for our college were transferred to the contractor, but at lower pay and with worse conditions of service. Managers made them cover more rooms, and they no longer had time to do the job properly – with dirt building up in corners and behind furniture they no longer had time to move. Many of the better workers left and were replaced by cheaper labour. The same thing happened in our hospitals, and ten years ago I was in bed in a ward where used syringes and dressings were in the dusty corners under the beds.
Cleaners in general are hard-working and want to do a good job. Like all workers they deserve decent treatment, and I’m pleased to be able to do what little I can to support their cause.
Photographically there isn’t a lot to say. Perhaps the image above raises one small issue in that it clearly shows the ID card worn by one of the people at the protest, though you can’t read it at this scale. Often I want to blur such information as names and bar-codes before sending images out, but on this occasion I forgot to do so.
There isn’t an obvious way to blur such details in Lightroom, but I find it is possible simply by using the Adjustment Brush to paint over them. Just select a value for Sharpness of -100 and brush over the area, and it will be effectively blurred. You can if you wish restore some of the visual weight by adding some Clarity, Contrast, Exposure and Highlight to taste, and of course can save it as a new brush with a suitable name. The two pictures look more or less the same, but the information is unreadable at any scale on the lower version.
More pictures at Bring SOAS Cleaners In-house.
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My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated are by Peter Marshall and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
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