TWO DEMONSTRATIONS are being held this week in support of striking workers who clean British Airways offices – and receive the legal minimum in pay.
British Airways have offices at Heathrow, and they employ OCS, a facilities services firm, to organise the cleaning. OCS does pay its own staff the real living wage – that’s £12.60 an hour and £13.85 an hour for staff working in London. But it pays workers who clean the BA offices in Heathrow just £11.44 – the legal minimum wage.
This level of pay leaves workers struggling to make ends meet. And, as you may imagine, it leaves OCS very well off. OCS made operating profits of £28.3 million in 2023: you would have thought they could have spared a sliver of that income to top the cleaners’ pay. BA’s parent company, IAG, made £1.7 billion during the peak summer season in 2024.
The cleaners went on strike for four days in late February in pursuit of a claim for higher pay. A further round of strikes is taking place from 15th-22nd March, during a week which includes the two demonstrations: •Monday, 17th March, 1-3pm, outside the OCS office in Feltham (TW14 0RX) •Tuesday, 18th March, 09.30-11am outside BA’s head office in West Drayton (UB7 0GA)
Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham said, “It is sheet hypocrisy for OCS to claim it is real living wage employer while its BA staff are struggling on poverty pay and forced to rely on food banks. Both OCS and BA are highly profitable and fully capable of paying these workers fairly and decently. Unite will stand by them in their strike action until they receive the wages they deserve.”
●Help the BA office cleaners! Email BA CEO Sean Doyle and OCS Rob Legge and call on them to increase the cleaners’ pay. Click here.
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