Reinstate UCL cleaner Juan Carlos Piedra, sacked for union activity

Professor Malcolm Grant, Provost
UCL
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
Cc: Fernando Martins, manager, O&G offices at UCL

Dear Professor Grant,

We are appalled that cleaning contractor O&G have illegally created a false redundancy at UCL in order to dismiss union activist Juan Carlos Piedra, a member of Unite.

Juan Carlos was transferred to UCL on 24th August and two days later was called by his manager to a meeting at which he was told that his trade union activities (organising in the London Living Wage campaign at SOAS and other sites) had been recorded and would not be tolerated. He was then told that there was no job for him at UCL. He was given a letter on 9th September (which O&G had dated 2nd September) saying he was redundant from 17th September.

As trade unionists, students and living wage campaign supporters, we will not tolerate members of our campus communities being treated in this way and victimised for exercising their democratic right to engage in legal trade union activities.

O&G are one of the major contractors in the cleaning industry who are now bullying, harassing and victimising workers, many of whom are migrants, in order to break trade union organisation and keep wages at the lowest possible levels.

All workers, including those on low pay and migrants, have an equal right to organise. We demand that Juan Carlos be reinstated, and that O&G be investigated for violation of trade union rights at UCL.