Housekeepers at London hotel to strike over pay and guaranteed hours
Housekeepers at Radisson Blu Canary Wharf in London are set to walk out at the end of this week in the first hotel workers’ strike in England in 46 years.
Independent trade union United Voices of the World (UVW) said housekeepers at the hotel are working in “unsustainable” conditions that have deteriorated ever since outsourcing company WGC took over the cleaning contract.
The union claims contracted hours have been slashed from 40 hours to as few as 16 hours per week, while daily room quotas have nearly doubled from 14 to 24.
Workers are also currently paid £13 per hour, which is above National Minimum Wage (£12.21 per hour) but under the London Living Wage (£13.85 per hour), according to UVW.
The Radisson Blu housekeepers plan to walk out on 9 August as they demand a return to 40 guaranteed hours per week and the London Living Wage.
It would mark the first housekeepers’ strike in England since 1979, when the chambermaids at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane took strike action in response to the dismissal and eviction of 30 of their colleagues.