Women's Views on News |
| Cleaners’ rights campaign launched Posted: 27 Oct 2015 05:42 AM PDT
A campaign to promote good working conditions in the cleaning industry has been launched by an industry-led taskforce set up by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The Equality and Human Rights Commission is a statutory body established under the Equality Act 2006. It operates as an independent body to protect and promote equality and human rights in Great Britain. It aims to encourage equality and diversity, eliminate unlawful discrimination, and promote and protect human rights. The Commission enforces equality legislation on age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation. It encourages compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998 and is accredited by the UN as an 'A status' National Human Rights Institution. The industry-led taskforce behind this new campaign, and which is chaired by the EHRC’s deputy chair Caroline Waters, includes leading businesses, trade associations and trade unions. The Commission convened the taskforce following publication of its report called ‘The Invisible Workforce: employment practices in the cleaning sector’. The Commission launched a project to examine employment practices in the cleaning sector in England, Scotland and Wales in September 2013; the EHRC wanted to understand how employers comply with their equality obligations in the work place and respect human rights. The focus was on standardised, non-domestic cleaning in the office, health, retail, transport and leisure sectors as these are the four largest users of cleaning services and the findings were published in August 2014. This set out the findings on employment practices in the commercial cleaning sector in England, Scotland and Wales. The report found many examples of good practice. These included cleaning firms with policies in place to promote equality and also clients who enter into longer-term contracts. These help firms to develop positive relationships with suppliers and also encourage investment in workforce development, leading to greater job stability. The report also found that some employers did not provide contracts to staff – and that employers some failed to pay their employees in full, or to pay sickness or holiday leave entitlements. Many cleaning operatives are female migrants who spoke of being 'invisible', of being treated badly compared to other employees, and said they did not understand their rights. To solve these problems the taskforce has developed some ‘principles for responsible procurement’, the purpose of which is to encourage clients who buy in cleaning services to consider the impact of procurement on the employment practices of ‘cleaning providers’. The taskforce also developed a poster to highlight the value of cleaning operatives, and Your Rights at Work postcards for cleaning firms to send to their employees explaining their employment rights. All of the materials can be downloaded from the Commission's website. Caroline Waters said: "The Commission's role is to promote and enforce the laws that protect our rights to fairness, dignity and respect. "It has been a great privilege to have worked over the past year or so with so many people who are committed to improving the working conditions of cleaning operatives," she continued. "It is fantastic that taskforce members drawn from across business, industry, trade associations, government, voluntary bodies and trade unions have come together with their thoughts, ideas and energy, and with a real appetite for tackling the problems our original report revealed. "We very much hope the tools we have now produced will help to bring real and lasting change for commercial cleaning operatives." For, as UNISON's Michelle Singleton, wrote, 'The initial research established what many of us have suspected for some time, that despite many areas of good practice, cleaners are still a largely invisible workforce and can be subject to some of the worst employment practices and human rights abuses in the UK . 'Key issues for all of us such as fairness, dignity and respect were all recurring themes for dissatisfaction amongst the workers in this sector. 'The cleaning sector has been ignored for too long and this work will go a long way to highlight issues in the sector and to raise the profile of cleaners in the workplace.'  |
| Open letter to the governments of Europe Posted: 27 Oct 2015 05:29 AM PDT
Over 90 volunteer groups from the UK, Ireland and 'mainland Europe' have sent an open letter to the governments of Europe calling for immediate and decisive action to alleviate the appalling situation the refugees from war zones currently on European soil are faced with – particularly in view of the imminent serious problem of wintertime. In their open letter to the governments of Europe they say: ‘We, the front-line volunteers who for months now have been helping thousands of refugees, call on all the governments of Europe to act immediately and decisively to alleviate the situation. There are tens of thousands of people moving through south-eastern Europe and the current capacities of volunteer-based help sites are seriously challenged. Given also the rapid approach of winter and problems at various borders, we feel there is a real danger that the situation will lead to serious medical problems and likely deaths among the refugee community. Every person has the legal right to seek asylum. If Europe is not able to provide safe and legal routes for asylum-seekers, it is obliged to provide aid to those who took the dangerous route. We do not want to see a single refugee dying while waiting in endless queues at European borders, literally in our own hands. Volunteers have been providing a wide range of activities so far, in many places completely replacing the absent government facilities and aid. We are distributing food and water, undertaking crowd management, providing critical information about registration and borders, referring vulnerable people to UNHCR or medical services, caring for children, managing stocks of clothing and blankets, cleaning waste, raising funds and providing shelter to the most vulnerable few. We have been doing all this for months in Lesvos, Athens, Gevgelija, Budapest, Röszke, Belgrade, Eidomeni, Hegyeshalom, Nickelsdorf, Wien, Salzburg, Heiligenkreuz, Zakány, Botovo, Calais, Preševo, Berkasovo, Bregana, Harmica, Trnovec, Mursko Središće, Bapska, Opatovac and a number of other places around Europe. We have proven that volunteers can do a lot, but we will be unable to keep thousands of people warm once the winter weather closes in. Winter is coming quickly and we all have just a few days to respond in a humane way. We call on all European countries to provide immediate help to all those countries affected by the refugee crisis, instead of helping those countries that are building fences. We call for the building of safe reception and transit centres with facilities that can cope with the harsh winter conditions of the region. We also call for humanitarian aid to be delivered to the people that need it, for the provision of appropriate medical services and for the coordination of all efforts on a pan-European level. We also call on the EU to immediately implement other mechanisms which aim to provide safe passage to the EU. This is advance notice to all of you, the leaders of Europe, that people will be freezing to death soon on our borders if you do not act now. We have done our best up to this point and we will continue to help for as long as is necessary. But now it is your turn, governments of Europe. Please respond and demonstrate to the world that humanity is still at the core of European values.’ This letter is signed on behalf of these organisations. The signatories – and the refugees – also need your help. While all organisations are happy to receive any kind of donation, right now they need more. Please share this letter and use #europeact Please call, email or visit your government, your MP, your MEP, your ministers or your president and ask them “What are you going to do to prevent suffering and death among refugees?” If they don’t answer, or their response is not sufficient, call, email or visit them again. For as long as is necessary. Thank you.  |
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