A recording of a conversation between a member of Ridge Crest Cleaning management and a worker has led to accusations that the company required workers to leave their union as a condition for receiving PPE. The recording, in which a member of management is heard speaking with a cleaner employed to work at Ark Globe Academy in south London, was made in the wake of a strike by cleaners against unpaid wages. 

According to their union, the United Voices of the World (UVW), workers at Ark Globe Academy had not been paid up to five weeks’ wages and had not received PPE. The workers plan further strikes for the London Living Wage, occupational sick pay, and trade union recognition.

Ridge Crest Cleaning’s alleged actions are part of a pattern that has emerged over the course of the pandemic in which employers have failed to provide workers with adequate PPE. These allegations are made more serious by the fact that all of the cleaners employed by the contractor at Ark Globe Academy are BAME, with BAME people significantly more likely to die from coronavirus than white people. UVW plans to start legal proceedings against the contractor and the school on the grounds of racial discrimination and attempting to restrain freedom of association.

Ridge Crest Cleaning said, in response to the allegation, it had followed government guidance on health and safety, PPE and face masks.