Another week, another breakfast stall! Students, ex-students and IWGB organisers have been greeting outsourced workers at UCL with tea, coffee and pastries one or two mornings each week since last summer. We’d like to express our gratitude to the activists who have shaken off sleep to make these stalls happen, but most of all to the cleaners who have stuck around after work to talk to us about how we can work together to improve their terms and conditions at UCL.

Workers at the breakfast stall in May.

The stalls function as a community hub where strong relationships have developed between workers who might not see each other on shift and between workers and the union. As a result, union membership and solidarity more generally has blossomed among cleaners at UCL. We have been able to solve numerous complaints and grievances brought to us by cleaners at the stalls. At the Institute of Education, for example, cleaners told us about the imminent introduction of clock-in-clock-out fingerprint technology. After a mini-campaign by the IWGB, this was delayed indefinitely.

If you’d like to get involved with the stalls, message UCL Justice for Workers. If you’re in the area, you can find the stalls at the Malet Place entrance to UCL on Thursdays (and at different locations across UCL on Fridays).