The Bank of New York Mellon have given in to the pay demand from Latin American cleaners after a formal claim declaring potential strike action was handed in to their Canary Wharf office.

The trade unionists, organised with grassroots group the United Voices of the World, will now be paid the London Living Wage of £10.20 per hour, equating to an extra £4,000 per year each.

In a statement, UVW said:

This victory was achieved within just 30 hours. To be precise it was the 23rd May at 5.17pm that we submitted our formal claim for the living wage putting the company on notice that if they did not commit to paying it within seven days, and implementing it within the month, that we would ballot the cleaners for an all-out strike. The cleaners, who work the night shift at the bank, were told at 11.30pm on May 24th that as of next month they will all receive £10.20 per hour.

This victory was achieved is record time for UVW, breaking our previous record which was achieved at Withers Law firm in Fleet Street where within 96 hours the company capitulated to our demand to pay their cleaners the London Living Wage who were formerly on the minimum wage, and backdate it too.

This is yet another example of the so-called ‘unorganisable’ and ‘invisible’ workers getting organised, fighting for dignity and respect and winning!

If they can do it, then so can you!

The cleaners—all migrants from Latin America—had previously been getting £8.50 an hour to work through the night at the bank, which rakes in annual revenues of $15 billion and recently received an almost half a billion dollars in corporate welfare tax breaks from Donald Trump’s administration in the US.

Pic: UVW