UVW launches campaign spotlighting exploitation of London’s essential workers

From the cleaners opening our hospitals in the early hours, to the security workers protecting private and public spaces, the housekeepers keeping hotels operating, the care workers looking after our communities and the hospitality workers keeping London fed — essential workers are everywhere.

Yet their work is too often invisible, undervalued and exploited.

Across the United Voices of the World‘s organising and casework, workers report poverty wages, insecure employment, outsourcing, discrimination, union-busting and abuse. For migrant workers, immigration status can add another layer of vulnerability, making it harder to challenge exploitation or speak out.

UVW is launching We Keep the City Running to bring these experiences together with new research, workers’ voices and collective action. The campaign will document the reality of migrant workers’ lives across London and expose the systems that allow essential work to be treated as disposable.

Nelly Ospino, UVW General Secretary said:

London could not function without the workers we are talking about. We clean its hospitals, care for its people, secure its public spaces, run its hotels and feed its workers. Yet too many of us are expected to survive on poverty wages and insecure jobs while the companies and institutions we work for benefit from our labour.

This is not about asking for charity or pity. It is about power, rights and dignity at work. Migrant workers organise, British-born workers organise — and when we organise together, we can change things. We are one working class.

The union explains:

‘The campaign will be rooted in UVW’s close proximity to essential workers and the workplaces where exploitation happens.

The campaign will aim to produce a Migrant Essential Worker Charter, demanding decent employment standards for the workers who provide essential services, including living wages, sick pay, paid holidays, pension rights, safe working conditions, protection from discrimination and the right to organise.

The exploitation of migrant workers is not a separate issue from the wider crisis facing working people. Outsourcing, low pay, insecure work and attacks on trade union rights affect working-class communities across London.

The answer is not to divide workers against one another.

Migrant workers are often talked about as vulnerable people who need protecting. We want to change that narrative. Migrant workers are workers. We organise, we fight back and we win. And when migrant workers win better conditions, it strengthens the position of every worker.

UVW is asking sister unions, migrant rights organisations, community campaigns and everyone who believes in decent work to stand with them. We keep this city running. Together, we have the power to make it work for us.

The campaign will produce a Migrant Worker Exploitation Report, documenting workers’ experiences and identifying patterns of exploitation across sectors including cleaning, services and the NHS. The research will put workers’ voices at the centre — showing not simply that exploitation exists, but what it means for workers, their families and communities.’

More details on ‘We Keep the City Running’ can be found here.