Luisa Perez Amaya, Unite rep at Forest School, Waltham Forest, spoke to the Socialist during a week-long strike of caterers and cleaners.
One of the parents joined the picket line this morning. She said she’d seen our videos, she grabbed the mic and started talking. She said: ‘I’ve seen your videos. I agree with you, it’s disgusting.’
We’ve been told that parents and students in the school have started a petition in our support. Parents contacted the union to tell us.
And the school student council has voted to support us! It is brilliant to know that they appreciate our job in the school and how important we are.
Teachers say hi to us as they go in. But we’ve heard nothing yet from management.
Management sent security to the picket line who have tried to intimidate us. One said to me: ‘You shouldn’t be here’.
What is the strike about?
We are not greedy. We don’t want more, we just want to keep what we’ve got.
A 13.5% pay reduction is proposed. They want to reduce us from 52-week pay to 44 weeks for catering staff and 45 weeks for cleaners. That’s £400 a month less for some of us, that’s a big gap. Even £200 or £100 a month is a big gap for a single parent.
We have more work to do because there’s less staff, and now on less money. Its very unfair and it shouldn’t be legal! How can a company say you were on £13.80 an hour, now you’re going to be on £10 or £11. It’s not right.
They told us if you want to earn more money, on the days you’re not working we can send you to other places to work!
They say we don’t work in the school holidays, but we do. We spring clean. We work a week in the summer. When there is a school holiday for two weeks, we might have just three or four days when we don’t work. The school is never closed, there’s always someone in there cleaning or working. We’re meant to have 28 days’ holiday on full pay. It’s not there.
They’re doing all this, yet the school has more kids every year. It’s more and more busy. According to the Charity Commission, the Head gets £300,000. The company that employs us, Compass, has a recorded profit of $1.8 billion. It’s only cleaners and caterers that are affected, they’re not cutting the managers’ pay.
How did you go from one union member to a fantastic picket line?
This started before the summer holiday when we all got a letter to go to a meeting. In the meeting we were told they want to cut the school fees, so they’re not going to feed teachers when they come in and do work in the holidays. They didn’t say about the impact on us.
After that, we started hearing they were going to pay us for ten months, not twelve.
Then in the summer holiday I found out that they weren’t going to feed us when we go in for the spring clean. We have a half-hour lunch break which we’re not paid for, because the school provides food. I said you either provide food or you pay us – or I’m leaving half an hour earlier. They said I could leave half an hour earlier. I said I’ll tell everyone. We’re all the same. Pay us or feed us.
People were getting scared, they were in tears. We have single parents, people are from Poland, Portugal, some from Spain – they didn’t know what to do. There’s the mental health issue too – how horrible life is now. People can become depressed and even suicidal. It’s so sad, because this affects our kids and our grandkids. It even affects the kids in the school. They should be going to learn and be happy. It needs to stop.
I was the only union member. I said, join the union, let’s fight together. Then the union organiser came in for a meeting and more joined.
So in this strike, we’re all taking action for the first time. Some members are scared. But on the picket lines its been great. We’ve had support from Unite, from the Trades Council, the Socialist Party, our families – my husband, my daughter have been here. Its good. It shows us that humanity is there still, all relying on each other. That’s how it should always be.
The school needs to stop thinking about their pockets and start thinking about the kids, and the parents, and the employees. The school won’t work without us doing our jobs.
We need to do this for the future.
