FRFI 211 October / November 2009

The Latin American community in Britain is increasingly involved in actions that are laying the foundations for a new political culture. FRFI has been active in solidarity with many of these activities. Rogelio Salgado, an activist with the Latin American Workers’ Association (LAWA), has written this article for FRFI.

Around 95% of Latin American workers are employed as cleaners of office buildings, bars, public transport and roads. We appreciate being part of this advanced consumer society. However, it is vital we remember that, while we live in a system that has all the trappings of democracy and that allows us certain rights, there are other rights we have to fight for.

Politically, the growing community of Latin American workers in London plays an important role. Many asylum seekers from Latin America bring with them a wealth of trade union experience which sharpens the class consciousness of workers’ struggles in Britain at a grass roots level, even if some of those involved in the existing union structures here would prefer to slow such developments down.

LAWA and Justice for Cleaners

Hundreds of the workers who today make up the Justice for Cleaners campaign organised by the Unite union originally became involved via LAWA. LAWA has actively supported the work of Justice for Cleaners, demanding not just rights as workers but also the right to stay in Britain.

But in our search for recognition as a group of cleaning workers who are fighting for our rights, we seem each day to be losing support and commitment to our struggle from certain members of Unite, one of the most powerful unions in this country. Take for example the case of Alberto Durango who, despite being a Unite member, has been denied adequate support after being victimised for his union membership by cleaning company Lancaster; as if that were not bad enough, Unite is even threatening to suspend him because he challenged the union bureaucracy.

At the beginning of 2009, the Mitie cleaning company sacked five cleaners who worked at the Willis building in the City of London. The workers requested support from Unite, but the union refused to support them on the basis that they had not exhausted the negotiation process and that, with support from LAWA, had decided to launch protests and demonstrations without official authorisation from Unite. For Unite, this appears to have been the final straw as far as LAWA was concerned. From then on, day by day we found ourselves increasingly marginalised and subjected to growing constraints imposed by Unite.

Faced with this hostility, LAWA had no option but to build grassroots support within the Coordinadora Latinoamericana [the London-based umbrella group of radical Latin America solidarity organisations] and distance itself from the trade union bureaucracy.

LAWA will continue to fight and to organise wherever solidarity is needed in action, not just words, and wherever progressive forces are to be found so that we can one day create a real union, one that is truly inclusive and representative. LAWA can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it