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Season 2 episode 2 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we interview Henry Chango Lopez from the Independent Workers’ union of Great Britain.
“In our union, the cleaner gets the same as the general secretary, in terms of being paid an hour…We pay £3 more than the London Living Wage, for instance, and the cleaner is paid the same”
– Henry
Show notes, links
IWGB website, Twitter and Instagram.
A few extra links:
Transcript
ALI
This is Resist + Renew,
KATHERINE
the UK based podcast about social movements,
SAMI
what we’re fighting for, why and how it all happens.
ALI
The hosts of the show are
KATHERINE
Me, Kat.
SAMI
Me, Sami,
ALI
and me, Ali.
SAMI
I’m recording this now, baby!
ALI
Shit, it’s a podcast!
ALI
Okay, welcome back to the Resist and Renew podcast. Today we are going to be talking to Henry Chango Lopez, who is from the IWGB. So a little bit about Henry and the IWGB. Henry is the General Secretary of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain. The IWGB is a union that represents and supports some of the most marginalised workers in Britain. The union focuses on outsourcing, the gig economy, and other areas where precarity, low pay and exploitation are the norm. Henry has been closely involved with the union since the early days and previously worked as an outsourced porter at the University of London, where he was involved in high profile campaigns.
Henry has years of experience in organising, listening to the experiences of workers in precarious positions, and advising them and what avenues are open to them.
Thanks so much for joining us, Henry.
HENRY
Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
ALI
Great to have you here. We’d love to just get started by getting a bit of your understanding as to like what is the current political context that you’re organising in right now? How do you see the situation, I guess, for workers right now in Britain?
Yeah, I mean, the situation at the moment is, is very difficult for workers, especially in regards to what has been happening during the pandemic, with with employers taking advantage of the pandemic, in order to worsen the condition of workers. And before the pandemic started, we already were fighting the pandemic as a union, which is exploitation in the, in the UK.
And this obviously has made the situation worse because workers have gone through a very difficult situation in our union. We represent low paid workers, migrant workers, workers without workers’ rights, and also workers who are in a difficult situation, and have been put in a difficult situation during the pandemic.
Because of the sectors that they work in, the sectors that we organise as a union, like cleaners, like security guards, like couriers, private hire drivers, foster carers and other workers that we represent as a union.
And most of them are, have gone through very difficult situations in terms of health and safety. For instance, during COVID, we have had to even take the government to court in order to improve the health and safety in the UK. And we’ve been successful in that regard.
But yeah, we’ve been basically challenging many employers who have been over exploited workers.
ALI
You mentioned that before even COVID pandemic happened, there’s a there’s a pandemic of exploitation. Why are we in that situation? Like, why is that the case in the UK right now?
HENRY
I think one of the big problems is that, you know, we live in a rich country. Unfortunately, there are many workers in this country who are not organised. Like, especially with unions, they have worked to organise workers who are now the real working class of this country, like, workers who are really, you know, working in, in sectors that are very, how can you say? very, you know, big sectors. Like, for instance, sectors, like the gig economy, where it’s new, new ways of working; new ways of, new ways of providing a service.
Like, for the public, for instance, in this case, we have these workers who, um, don’t have rights. And we have had to challenge you know, employers like Uber, Deliveroo, who are employing these workers, who don’t give them the proper protections and the proper pay, for instance, that the work is needed in order to, you know, survive in this country, basically, in the new economy without workers rights, without things like sick pay or holiday, pensions, that everybody takes for granted: maternity pay, paternity pay. It’s very difficult for these workers to to live, you know, when they have families as well.
And the other sectors that we represent like cleaners, you know, we’ve been fighting outsourcing in the University, we’ve been fighting outsourcing in many workplaces, because outsourcing is one of the big problems as well. That we’ve been challenging and we’ve been winning, huge victories in universities where we have managed to end outsourcing like in University of London, where we managed to secure better sick pay, better holiday, better pensions, maternity pay, paternity pay in line with direct-employed staff. And we have also managed to end their abuse that comes with that, it’s not just about conditions. It’s not just about terms and conditions. It’s about dignity and respect in the workplace. And it is something that these workers don’t have in many workplaces.
And we see, like, in this country, there is not, unfortunately, there is no law enforcement in terms of employment protections. Most of the time, many of these workers, if you have a problem, for instance, you’re not being paid in this country. 1000 pounds of your months of wages, let’s say as an example, there is no way you can get that money back. You have to take your employer to court. How can you, as a cleaner, who doesn’t speak the language, in many cases can’t take an employer to court? Or how can you as a courier, private hire driver, have to fight with a lawyer and pay, you know, 1000s maybe pounds in order to get justice.
So that’s why we are encouraging workers to join the union. Because through the union, we’ve been able to break those barriers and, you know, take, take action and get justice for, for workers. And that’s why the IWGB was set up: in order to do that, because we didn’t have that, that that route of getting justice. And that’s something that we’ve been doing over the years, for all of our members.
ALI
Amazing. Yeah. I guess I’m curious, again, about that, that context where workers’ rights are really don’t exist, or like you have to really fight hard to get them. Is that a new situation? Is that a result of the gig economy of outsourcing? Or is it a legacy of like, Thatcherism? Where, like what exactly means it’s like it is now? Why why is it so bad?
HENRY
I think, I think, it’s just, in terms of outsourcing. I think it’s just the way that the economy has been functioning for years, you know, the use of ‘Xerox contracts’. The, the, the way outsourcing works, for instance, you know, that most of the time when they employ workers, especially in many of the sectors it’s low, low paid workers, you know.
Lower wages, these workers, migrant workers, who work in those industries, and they take advantage of them in order to over exploit them, by, you know, like giving them unfair conditions of work. But also, in many cases, we have many companies that don’t even pay them. But I think it’s the lack of protection in this country, there’s no law enforcement. And I don’t think there’s got to do with touchscreens or whatever, I think it’s just the government that hasn’t implemented proper law enforcement in the country, in terms of the protections for workers.
But in terms of the gig economy, this is a new, a new way of, of work, that is changing: it’s changing, the economy is changing the lives of people, and it’s expanding day by day. It’s seen as something that is just it’s just happened, and then it’s just expanding, and is not the law, the law, the workers’ rights are not going according to what’s happening at the moment. You know, there’s all these huge corporations like Uber, like Deliveroo, who basically are doing whatever they like. And because they have so many investors that invest in that most of them are, you know, rich people who are even in the government that you know, supporting this, they there is no interest in changing the way they are functioning.
So I think there’s a huge it’s a huge challenge for us as a union and that’s what we’ve been fighting in the courts, we’ve been fighting in the streets, we’ve been fighting you know, with demonstrations and trying to organise the workers in order to to keep changing this because if it wasn’t for a union like us, things wouldn’t wouldn’t have changed. I think I mean, these recent rulings from Uber giving workers some some conditions, some, you know, like, conditions, but that’s not everything.
We’re still fighting for better conditions, and also to improve the situation of the workers because by not having workers’ rights, you don’t have protection of your work.
We’ve we’ve seen deactivation: so people, with a click of a button, they deactivate one person. They’re finished with a job, there is no right to appeal. There is no process whatsoever. We saw for this system that we that these workers have. In terms of foster carers as well, they don’t have any, any any, you know, workers’ rights either. So they also don’t have the rights, the rights that other workers have in terms of normal worker status.
KATHERINE
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for sharing a lot about that context for us. It’s, I guess, good to understand where we’re at. And you talk about IWGB fighting in the courts and in the streets and fighting for workers’ rights. And it would be really great to hear more about the organisation. Like, what is what is IWGB about and how, how do you do what you do?
HENRY
Yeah, I mean, we the IWGB was set up in 2012, by Latin American cleaners, trying to, trying to find justice and try to organise because it was difficult to organise in the beginning. I’m one of those who came out from the, er, at the beginning because we couldn’t organise. They weren’t just interested in our in our struggles. And that’s why the IWGB was set up: to fight our own struggles, but to do it our way. And also to get the workers involved in the struggle and that’s what the IWGB is all about, you know?
It’s a mi- it’s a workers-led organisation. And that’s why we tried to keep it that way. Because we have experienced before with bureaucracies that have been, you know, stopping the the struggles that we needed to do in order to to get justice, but also to improve their conditions of work.
So at the moment, we you know, since since we set up, we have been organising, we’ve been increasing our membership. We have been welcoming new industries, like you know, couriers and private drivers like yoga teacher, cycling instructors, workers in universities, cleaners, security guards, game workers, nannies, au pairs.
And at the moment, we have 11 branches in the union. And we have done something that it was unimaginable it, you know, it was unimaginable today, before, because even myself, like, I couldn’t believe that when you know, we will, I can’t believe we are now 11 branches! We were a cleaners union.
So we have come a long way. But people have joined our union, because they have seen that we are a fighting union. That we are, you know, getting results, we are winning. And that’s what the IWGB is all about. And we continue to great leadership in a union, we continue to work, making sure that our members are the ones who are leading the struggles, the ones who are leading our union, the ones who are in the positions of power in the union, in order to keep fighting for workers’ rights, and for better conditions.
Because there are none better placed than the workers to know the problems that the industry, what their problems are there in the industries. And that’s why we are, you know, providing them with all the skills that’s needed: trainings, and support. In order to do that we have cleaners in our union, which is the biggest branch in a union, most of them they don’t speak the language. But despite that, we’ve been able to achieve huge victories in many sectors, you know, in many workplaces, in terms of getting London Living Wage, in terms of improving the conditions, sick pay, and other conditions where there were facing, you know, problems at work.
So this where the IWGB is all about and we are continuing to grow as an organisation, and we hope to keep this together this lovely union, that we have created. And I think it’s so great to see so many workers organised and working and working shoulder to shoulder despite not speaking the language, despite being from different nationalities, but also despite being you know, from migrant backgrounds and working together like, you know, having foster carers with mostly white British and having cleaners and mostly Latin Americans or from other countries, you know, in, but at the same time, they are having the same problems. You know, there’s they’re fighting for the same for better conditions of work. And that’s the good thing about this as about, about our organisation, that we all are fighting for the same cause and we are all united through that.
KATHERINE
Yeah, incredible. It’s so good to hear a bit about the history as well like how you started out as just one branch and now 11 branches and all the people involved. It’s really, yeah, exciting to hear about it. And yeah, I guess I’m like, within that I’m really interested in like, how you organise, how are you building power, because it feels that you’re growing a lot. It’s grown so much since it started and what is there like, yeah, they’re a bit of the details of how you’re winning? Because there are wins that are happening for workers rights that IWGB are leading. And I’m wondering if you could share a bit with us about yeah, how you’re building, how you’re building that power.
HENRY
I mean, yeah, we’re building that power through educating our members to make them understand that nothing is going to change in this country if we don’t get involved. And that’s why we always say to the workers or anybody who joined the union: We need to get involved, we need to be the ones leading the struggle, nobody’s going to change this for us. It’s us who are going to create this change. You know, history has shown that it’s the workers who have gone on the streets who have been, you know, who have organised in order to make big changes.
That’s what the ideology has been doing over the years. And through that education, we are getting, as I said, we know provided the trainings in order to, for them to, to understand what they need to make those changes, but also in terms of working with other organisations, working in solidarity with many other groups that we need in order to win our campaigns or win our struggles.
As in, solidarity is very important, not just within a union, but also outside the union. That’s why the IWGB has been working, you know, with with organisations like Black Lives Matter, with with many MPs, with Latin American Women’s Rights, with Settle. We helped with with for helped Europeans apply for citizenship; and many other organisations that have, you know, been supporting us. But we’ve been working together because at the end of the day, one of the one of the things that these noises about workers rights is about grades and they big community because we have many other problems also, not just in their workplace, but in other areas.
And that’s what we try to build in the union: this kind of solidarity but also a community that is here to stay, but also that is here to get involved whenever we need support.
And one of the most important thing I think, is to make those workers or those leaders feel that they are part of a community, you know? That they’re not just fighting for the rights at work, but they are part of the community.
KATHERINE
Yeah, absolutely. And I guess, like, kind of linked to that you mentioned that the IWGB like came out of a frustration with some of the bigger unions, and it feels like sort of implicitly you’re talking a lot about the the ways that the IWGB is different. But I wonder if you could just explain that a little bit more for people who may be listening who don’t know so much about union organising?
HENRY
Yeah, I think I think one of the big problems that I’ve seen and I felt when I was I was even an official one of the unions, big unions and one of the things that they don’t understand the problems that we have, especially like as migrants, and they don’t they don’t care about organising certain sectors. Because I think they see that you know, they don’t want to agitate, they don’t want to you know, they they don’t want to be in on the streets or you know, they’re not used to that and i think that’s that’s a challenge for them.
But also they don’t want to put resources you know, these big unions have got lots of money in their accounts, but they still don’t don’t dare to organise workers who have been exploited. You see during this pandemic, how many workers going through a very difficult situation? Because I think most of most of most of the big unions are just interested to organise the big sectors, not not unorganised workers and or marginalised workers.
And I think this is something that should change. I mean, big unions should be organising these sectors, in every workplace. We’ve seen, we’ve seen, we’ve seen an example for example, in universities, every time if you go now to any university in the UK, all the outsourced workers, surely they are exploited. It 100% that’s happening. And we’ve seen, every time we go to any university to organise these workers, these big unions said to us, ‘Oh, we, this is these are our members!’ You know? They claim their members, but they’re never there to help them. And that’s the problem.
They don’t want you to go there to organise, but they don’t they don’t help them either. So they don’t, you know, they should be putting resources into helping them. But this is what is happening in every workplace. You know, there’s big unions in big buildings like you know, organising workers in government department, for instance. But you see there the outsourced workers like cleaners, security guards, they’re not organised by these unions.
And that’s a problem that we have, you know, when we try to organise with them that we weren’t felt supported with, they weren’t, they didn’t want to put resources in our struggle, and that’s why we decided like to end up leaving and that’s what as I said, people who were here before in the IWGB came out of the beginnings as well having the same issues.
ALI
Yeah, that makes sense. And sounds super frustrating that they’re not not doing that. But it’s great that the IWGB has has taken up that role. And yeah, you mentioned solidarity. And that’s what was coming to mind when you were talking about the all the different people in your union working together, like recognising the different, different, but connected fights that is going on, right? Sounds super powerful, and yeah, really inspiring. And I know there’s now 11 branches. And so I don’t want you to like pick necessarily, which is like the ‘most important’ or anything like that, but like, what do you think, like the key battles that you’re facing right now?
I think for us, I don’t I don’t need to pick any I think for for us and myself, especially as General Secretary, I mean, all the branches are very important, you know, we’re fighting for the workers to change. If we could have more branches, we have more workers and have more resources to help more workers, we will do it, you know?
KATHERINE
Yeah.
HENRY
I mean, all of, all of our members in each of the branches, they are here because they are going through a very difficult situation. They don’t, they want to change their their situation in terms of better pay, in terms of better conditions, in terms of workers rights. But I think we have something in common: we’re fighting exploitation. And we tried to change as I said, we’re trying to change the system that is unfair against all these workers, you know, it might be yoga teachers with having problems with, with sexual harassment at work or, or being, you know, underpaid; like foster carers not having workers rights or private hire drivers who work for Uber and other operators, not having the workers’ rights, you know, not having a proper pay; like couriers, who, they are in the same situation without workers’ rights. But also, you know, being, being not paid properly, you know, a proper wage, and other problems that they have. You know, with cleaners, getting fighting outsourcing University and fighting outsourcing as well.
So I think for us, we want to fight any kind of exploitation in our union, whether it be outsourcing whether it be the gig economy. At the moment, obviously we are our concentration is on outsourcing, and the gig economy, because that’s a big problem at the moment. In the in the UK, I mean, of our struggles. Because the members will represent the majority come from those, you know, from those sectors, but obviously, we have other other branches that are or not in the gig economy, but they still are fighting for better pay, like cycle instructors, for instance, who are now balloting for a strike, who are also kind of fighting outsourcing as well, because they are outsourced by the Council.
ALI
Right, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, obviously, fighting exploitation wherever it is, sounds like the right thing to do, of course. Do you think, I think like, with like the battle against Uber and things like that there’s been high profile cases. Do you think there are any battles like that, that are on the cusp of like, any significant changes for you right now?
HENRY
Yeah, I think we have had, I think we have been successful in getting you know, the Uber case, the Uber ruling, it hasn’t come just you know, because they want to give that. They have given us it because we’ve been in the courts, we’ve been on the streets, we’ve been fighting, it’s been a long struggle. And the same, like, Deliveroo also has given some workers rights recently. I mean, some, some, some benefits. But that is something that has happened.
And because we’ve also been challenging them, I think there’s still a lot of work to do, you know, this corporation is going to keep fighting because they want to keep that model for them that are making, you know, people who are investing in them, they, they want to, you know, get the millions that they want to get out of it. But this comes as, as on the back of the workers you know, on the on the on the work that they do. And the suffering that they go through, by not being paid properly, or by not being given the conditions that they’re supposed to have, they, I mean, they should have.
KATHERINE
Yeah.
HENRY
But I think also in terms of outsourcing I think nothing is going to change, as I said: is it us who need to change. Outsourcing, better pay is not going to, you know, even the government, when they raise the payment, they raised 10, you know, 5p or the or 20p or something. And we have gone to many places and got London Living Wage to £10.85 where workers were getting their minimum wage with £8-something now. So, you know, we are creating this change, I think we can we can do we can keep doing these changes, because there is a lot of organisations and businesses that are paying minimum wage when they are getting millions or billions in their accounts. And, you know, this is something that we is happening everywhere. So I think it’s for a reason as to keep changing it for the better.
KATHERINE
Yeah, absolutely. I guess like, in terms of the struggle for workers’ rights and improving conditions, like you have a lot of values in your politics that you are expressing out in the world on the streets and in the work that you’re doing, and your organising. I guess, um, the next question is kind of more internal to the IWGB and wondering about the value, how these values live within the union. Like, in terms of the way that you organise with each other, the structures that you have, the way you make decisions, these sorts of things? Be great to hear a bit about that.
HENRY
I mean, as someone, myself, especially as General Secretary, and the people who have been leading the union from the, from the from the start, we as I said, we are a union that have come from, from from from, you know, from coming come out from big unions, because we didn’t have that support. But also, most of our members, and myself, I used to work in the cleaning industry, for instance. I suffered exploitation, I was a low paid worker, I didn’t have rights in terms of better conditions, in terms of sick pay, holiday, you know, pensions, in terms of equality. But we also just have basic conditions.
So, as an organisation, but also the thing, the thing is that I, I also suffer like the harassment and the bullying that comes with it in my, in my workplace, because of the work I used to do. And that’s what happened with many cleaners for instance, in this country, who go through very hard situations. And obviously, as an organisation, we want to be an example of an employee, for instance. And one example is, for instance, in our union, the cleaner gets the same as the general secretary, in terms of being paid an hour. So we got, you know, we pay £3 more than the London Living Wage, for instance, and the cleaner is paid the same.
The structures of our union, our, you know, our union, is led by migrant workers. And we try this to be the case, we try to that we try always, our structures that create are created to have those people in power, like people like myself, and other people who come from my background, who have been through these difficult situations to be on the leadership positions, and be the ones who are taking the decisions for the whole union.
For instance, we have an Executive Committee, which is formed by officials from each of the branches. In some branches they have their women’s officer in some branches, they have BME officer. So we tried to balance the situation. So we, you know, the union have what we fight in the outside, in terms of, you know, the workers who are like migrants and being exploited: we want them to be the leaders in our union. And the ones who are leading and taking decisions in our organisation because they are the ones who understand better the problems that we face in each of the industries and they are the ones better to lead this organisation.
So in terms of sick pay, holiday, pensions, for instance, we fought outsourcing at the University of London, I fought for equality in terms of having the same conditions for cleaners, for instance, with someone who works directly for the university which is a professor which is someone who works in finance or whatever.
So in our union, we copied a model for our employees. So everybody in the union, they have six months full paid sick pay, they have like 30 holidays, 30 days holidays, they have like we have the pensions kind of the same as University of London. So this is an example that we you know, we are giving our staff something that we are fighting for in workplaces.
We also have we also have representatives, for instance we represent the staff because obviously we are a union. But we also when we when we were fighting for, for workers to be heard in every workplace. So we have that as well in our union, we have representatives who are representing the staff, the views of the staff, and we listen to them for their concerns or for anything they need in order to make that you know, their job, a good place to work.
KATHERINE
Thank you for telling us all that it’s incredible. I mean, just like the especially the real material things like that what you’re fighting for out in the world, materially you are making sure are happening in your workplace. And it’s not just words, which can often happen with some with some of the politics. That feels really amazing to hear.
Yeah, we and we do that despite being on a small organisation. It’s not, it’s not easy, but, you know, I think we had to we have to do what we are fighting for, we have to show those values in our organisation that would that’s why we tried to do.
KATHERINE
Yeah, absolutely. I think one one thing that’s sort of coming to my mind just as sort of curious about is sort of how you care for each other, like how you take care when there’s so much to fight for. There’s so many urgent struggles right now. And and how everybody is able to keep going and not get so exhausted, because the fight is long and hard. And just interested in how that how that work is shared, how people are cared for within the union? That’s a question that’s coming to mind.
HENRY
Yeah, I mean, our organisation has been growing so quickly, you know, we were we jumped into the water. We don’t know, not knowing how to swim. That’s what happened at the IWGB, we, none of us, we’ve been experts, everybody who’s been involved in the union. None of us have been expert in trade unions for instance: myself, I used to be cleaner. A porter at the University of London. Now I’m the General Secretary. But I didn’t have experience before in this country. I lived 20 years. But for 10 years, I didn’t know about unions, I didn’t know about social movements. I wasn’t involved in any of that. But I, I got involved because exploitation, I was I was having in my workplace. And that’s why I became a member of the union. And then I became an official. And I’ve been, you know, so we’ve been, we’ve been working ways of ensuring that, you know, we win campaigns that we organise, but we also, we put structures in place, in order to make sure everybody has the tools to do the, you know, to do the job that they do as officials or as representatives.
In terms of our staff, we will, you know, we look after our staff, as I said before, in terms of in terms of our officials and people who are like organising, we normally try to, er, every branch have officials. So every branch, decide they are kind of autonomous in decision making in terms of campaigns and organising. And we have the support from the central union as well. So we try to implement more staff in order to support branches, but we also provided them with trainings that they need. And we tried, we’ve tried to implement things in order to help them to do their job better.
But we also have meetings, regular meetings, with branches, we have meetings, branches have monthly meetings as well. And yeah, we’re trying to form structures in order to you know, make sure that everybody is happy, and everybody is is doing their work without getting exhausted.
ALI
Yeah, sounds really amazing. And I think, yeah, super practical, as as Katherine was saying, like the material ways that you’re organising, make sense. It aligns with what you’re fighting for. And the fact that you’re a small organisation, doing what you say, others should do, mean, it’s is even more example of like, why the hell are the universities not doing it this way? Why are the big corporations not doing it? if you can do it, anyone could do it, right? You’re, you’re an example. And this the stories of how, like your story of how you you’ve gone from being a porter to the General Secretary shows how that leadership has actually been put into place and the how the structures, you’re not you’re not just like a member of a union, where you go to them for help, and they deliver a service. You’re, you’re trained and empowered to work with with one another to get what you need. And that’s, that’s what it’s all about, right? It’s incredible.
So I guess, like, part of what this podcast is about is that people who don’t know about your organisation might be listening and might be getting inspired by you by your struggle. If someone’s listening, and they they want to get involved, or they want to know more about just union organising, in general, what would what would you suggest them to do?
HENRY
Yeah, I will say that, as I said, from as I said, at some point in a conversation, not, nothing is going to change if we don’t get involved. For any industry where we are, you know, getting, working in a low paid job, not having good conditions of employment, having bad treatment, in terms of how we’ve been treated, we are treated as workers, not having rights at work.
This all these problems, even like in the nannies, for instance, in the nannies branch, we have people where they were having problems with the visa, so is it with a immigration system that it needs changing, as well. It’s not just about workers’ rights it’s about these problems that the workers have, with the visas for instance. I think we need to organise more, we need to join a union. It’s such an important tool to get, you know, what you want in your workplace to get a tool where you can, you know, talk to your employer, or have your voice been heard by your employer.
Since I’ve been a member of the union, I’ve, my life has changed completely in terms of, you know, how I was treated at work, who I was. I had a voice, you know, in my workplace like, that I didn’t have before. The exploitation I suffered in my workplace change completely when I joined a union when I was part of the union, when we formed this big community. Not just in the union, but in my workplace, with it with workers who are having all sorts of problems.
But also this community in the University where I used to work for instance, where we unite with people who worked directly for the university, who would have would never even talk when we were in the workplace because we, you know, we, they do their work, we do our work. And some of the time though we don’t speak the language, but through the union will enable to, to get together, you know, even to have like, some salsa dancing, you know, see people salsa dancing like Latinos with someone who is from, you know, from like, from the UK that they have never even met. And it’s such, it’s such an I think, I think the union have a lot of these things. But I think it’s very important that we can, we can get organised. And we can fight together for a cause.
Because as I said, things are not going to change, especially with the pandemic, especially with Brexit. What’s happening now, the situation is becoming even worse. Employers have taken taken advantage of the pandemic to worsen workers rights. And with Brexit, as well. Many employers are also taking advantage of what’s happening to get rid of workers. And these are lots of unfair situation that happened in that moment.
And if we want to change workers’ rights for the better in this country, just by you know, joining a union and getting organised, get together and fight for better working conditions. That’s it.
ALI
Amazing, yeah, that’s so good. And I really like that. The idea of salsa dancing as part of like the community, it’s like, obviously, we want to get out and fight. We want to win win campaigns, we want to change things. But it’s also about more than, not, you’re not just a worker, you’re you’re also people, you want to build that relationship with each other. You want to build that enjoyment and life outside of that. But I think you’ve said it a few times now, but nothing, nothing is gonna change unless we do something about it. So that that’s that’s sticking with me from this conversation. And anyone listening, I encourage you to get out there and join the IWGB or any other great genuine union that’s out there. Yeah, thank you so much for this, this conversation. I’m feeling really inspired by it.
KATHERINE
Thanks so much, Henry. It’s been great talking to you.
HENRY
Thank you. Thank you.
ALI
Thanks once again to Henry Chango Lopez for joining us on this episode of the Resist and Renew podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @hchlopez and the IWGB Twitter account is @IWGBunion.
Thanks as always to Klaus for our intro and backing music.This song is called Neff and you can follow Klaus @klausmusic. Thanks also to Kareem Samara for the interlude music. You can find more of his tracks at SoundCloud Kareem Samara Music.
To find out more about Resist and Renew you can check out our website, ResistRenew.com. We’re on all the socials and on our website there’s also links to transcripts of all our episodes of this season and the last one.
Thanks for joining us and catch you next time. Bye!
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By Resist and RenewWe now have a Patreon! Please help keep the podcast going, at patreon.com/resistrenew. If not, there’s always the classic ways to support: like, share, and subscribe!
Season 2 episode 2 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we interview Henry Chango Lopez from the Independent Workers’ union of Great Britain.
“In our union, the cleaner gets the same as the general secretary, in terms of being paid an hour…We pay £3 more than the London Living Wage, for instance, and the cleaner is paid the same”
– Henry
Show notes, links
IWGB website, Twitter and Instagram.
A few extra links:
Transcript
ALI
This is Resist + Renew,
KATHERINE
the UK based podcast about social movements,
SAMI
what we’re fighting for, why and how it all happens.
ALI
The hosts of the show are
KATHERINE
Me, Kat.
SAMI
Me, Sami,
ALI
and me, Ali.
SAMI
I’m recording this now, baby!
ALI
Shit, it’s a podcast!
ALI
Okay, welcome back to the Resist and Renew podcast. Today we are going to be talking to Henry Chango Lopez, who is from the IWGB. So a little bit about Henry and the IWGB. Henry is the General Secretary of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain. The IWGB is a union that represents and supports some of the most marginalised workers in Britain. The union focuses on outsourcing, the gig economy, and other areas where precarity, low pay and exploitation are the norm. Henry has been closely involved with the union since the early days and previously worked as an outsourced porter at the University of London, where he was involved in high profile campaigns.
Henry has years of experience in organising, listening to the experiences of workers in precarious positions, and advising them and what avenues are open to them.
Thanks so much for joining us, Henry.
HENRY
Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
ALI
Great to have you here. We’d love to just get started by getting a bit of your understanding as to like what is the current political context that you’re organising in right now? How do you see the situation, I guess, for workers right now in Britain?
Yeah, I mean, the situation at the moment is, is very difficult for workers, especially in regards to what has been happening during the pandemic, with with employers taking advantage of the pandemic, in order to worsen the condition of workers. And before the pandemic started, we already were fighting the pandemic as a union, which is exploitation in the, in the UK.
And this obviously has made the situation worse because workers have gone through a very difficult situation in our union. We represent low paid workers, migrant workers, workers without workers’ rights, and also workers who are in a difficult situation, and have been put in a difficult situation during the pandemic.
Because of the sectors that they work in, the sectors that we organise as a union, like cleaners, like security guards, like couriers, private hire drivers, foster carers and other workers that we represent as a union.
And most of them are, have gone through very difficult situations in terms of health and safety. For instance, during COVID, we have had to even take the government to court in order to improve the health and safety in the UK. And we’ve been successful in that regard.
But yeah, we’ve been basically challenging many employers who have been over exploited workers.
ALI
You mentioned that before even COVID pandemic happened, there’s a there’s a pandemic of exploitation. Why are we in that situation? Like, why is that the case in the UK right now?
HENRY
I think one of the big problems is that, you know, we live in a rich country. Unfortunately, there are many workers in this country who are not organised. Like, especially with unions, they have worked to organise workers who are now the real working class of this country, like, workers who are really, you know, working in, in sectors that are very, how can you say? very, you know, big sectors. Like, for instance, sectors, like the gig economy, where it’s new, new ways of working; new ways of, new ways of providing a service.
Like, for the public, for instance, in this case, we have these workers who, um, don’t have rights. And we have had to challenge you know, employers like Uber, Deliveroo, who are employing these workers, who don’t give them the proper protections and the proper pay, for instance, that the work is needed in order to, you know, survive in this country, basically, in the new economy without workers rights, without things like sick pay or holiday, pensions, that everybody takes for granted: maternity pay, paternity pay. It’s very difficult for these workers to to live, you know, when they have families as well.
And the other sectors that we represent like cleaners, you know, we’ve been fighting outsourcing in the University, we’ve been fighting outsourcing in many workplaces, because outsourcing is one of the big problems as well. That we’ve been challenging and we’ve been winning, huge victories in universities where we have managed to end outsourcing like in University of London, where we managed to secure better sick pay, better holiday, better pensions, maternity pay, paternity pay in line with direct-employed staff. And we have also managed to end their abuse that comes with that, it’s not just about conditions. It’s not just about terms and conditions. It’s about dignity and respect in the workplace. And it is something that these workers don’t have in many workplaces.
And we see, like, in this country, there is not, unfortunately, there is no law enforcement in terms of employment protections. Most of the time, many of these workers, if you have a problem, for instance, you’re not being paid in this country. 1000 pounds of your months of wages, let’s say as an example, there is no way you can get that money back. You have to take your employer to court. How can you, as a cleaner, who doesn’t speak the language, in many cases can’t take an employer to court? Or how can you as a courier, private hire driver, have to fight with a lawyer and pay, you know, 1000s maybe pounds in order to get justice.
So that’s why we are encouraging workers to join the union. Because through the union, we’ve been able to break those barriers and, you know, take, take action and get justice for, for workers. And that’s why the IWGB was set up: in order to do that, because we didn’t have that, that that route of getting justice. And that’s something that we’ve been doing over the years, for all of our members.
ALI
Amazing. Yeah. I guess I’m curious, again, about that, that context where workers’ rights are really don’t exist, or like you have to really fight hard to get them. Is that a new situation? Is that a result of the gig economy of outsourcing? Or is it a legacy of like, Thatcherism? Where, like what exactly means it’s like it is now? Why why is it so bad?
HENRY
I think, I think, it’s just, in terms of outsourcing. I think it’s just the way that the economy has been functioning for years, you know, the use of ‘Xerox contracts’. The, the, the way outsourcing works, for instance, you know, that most of the time when they employ workers, especially in many of the sectors it’s low, low paid workers, you know.
Lower wages, these workers, migrant workers, who work in those industries, and they take advantage of them in order to over exploit them, by, you know, like giving them unfair conditions of work. But also, in many cases, we have many companies that don’t even pay them. But I think it’s the lack of protection in this country, there’s no law enforcement. And I don’t think there’s got to do with touchscreens or whatever, I think it’s just the government that hasn’t implemented proper law enforcement in the country, in terms of the protections for workers.
But in terms of the gig economy, this is a new, a new way of, of work, that is changing: it’s changing, the economy is changing the lives of people, and it’s expanding day by day. It’s seen as something that is just it’s just happened, and then it’s just expanding, and is not the law, the law, the workers’ rights are not going according to what’s happening at the moment. You know, there’s all these huge corporations like Uber, like Deliveroo, who basically are doing whatever they like. And because they have so many investors that invest in that most of them are, you know, rich people who are even in the government that you know, supporting this, they there is no interest in changing the way they are functioning.
So I think there’s a huge it’s a huge challenge for us as a union and that’s what we’ve been fighting in the courts, we’ve been fighting in the streets, we’ve been fighting you know, with demonstrations and trying to organise the workers in order to to keep changing this because if it wasn’t for a union like us, things wouldn’t wouldn’t have changed. I think I mean, these recent rulings from Uber giving workers some some conditions, some, you know, like, conditions, but that’s not everything.
We’re still fighting for better conditions, and also to improve the situation of the workers because by not having workers’ rights, you don’t have protection of your work.
We’ve we’ve seen deactivation: so people, with a click of a button, they deactivate one person. They’re finished with a job, there is no right to appeal. There is no process whatsoever. We saw for this system that we that these workers have. In terms of foster carers as well, they don’t have any, any any, you know, workers’ rights either. So they also don’t have the rights, the rights that other workers have in terms of normal worker status.
KATHERINE
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for sharing a lot about that context for us. It’s, I guess, good to understand where we’re at. And you talk about IWGB fighting in the courts and in the streets and fighting for workers’ rights. And it would be really great to hear more about the organisation. Like, what is what is IWGB about and how, how do you do what you do?
HENRY
Yeah, I mean, we the IWGB was set up in 2012, by Latin American cleaners, trying to, trying to find justice and try to organise because it was difficult to organise in the beginning. I’m one of those who came out from the, er, at the beginning because we couldn’t organise. They weren’t just interested in our in our struggles. And that’s why the IWGB was set up: to fight our own struggles, but to do it our way. And also to get the workers involved in the struggle and that’s what the IWGB is all about, you know?
It’s a mi- it’s a workers-led organisation. And that’s why we tried to keep it that way. Because we have experienced before with bureaucracies that have been, you know, stopping the the struggles that we needed to do in order to to get justice, but also to improve their conditions of work.
So at the moment, we you know, since since we set up, we have been organising, we’ve been increasing our membership. We have been welcoming new industries, like you know, couriers and private drivers like yoga teacher, cycling instructors, workers in universities, cleaners, security guards, game workers, nannies, au pairs.
And at the moment, we have 11 branches in the union. And we have done something that it was unimaginable it, you know, it was unimaginable today, before, because even myself, like, I couldn’t believe that when you know, we will, I can’t believe we are now 11 branches! We were a cleaners union.
So we have come a long way. But people have joined our union, because they have seen that we are a fighting union. That we are, you know, getting results, we are winning. And that’s what the IWGB is all about. And we continue to great leadership in a union, we continue to work, making sure that our members are the ones who are leading the struggles, the ones who are leading our union, the ones who are in the positions of power in the union, in order to keep fighting for workers’ rights, and for better conditions.
Because there are none better placed than the workers to know the problems that the industry, what their problems are there in the industries. And that’s why we are, you know, providing them with all the skills that’s needed: trainings, and support. In order to do that we have cleaners in our union, which is the biggest branch in a union, most of them they don’t speak the language. But despite that, we’ve been able to achieve huge victories in many sectors, you know, in many workplaces, in terms of getting London Living Wage, in terms of improving the conditions, sick pay, and other conditions where there were facing, you know, problems at work.
So this where the IWGB is all about and we are continuing to grow as an organisation, and we hope to keep this together this lovely union, that we have created. And I think it’s so great to see so many workers organised and working and working shoulder to shoulder despite not speaking the language, despite being from different nationalities, but also despite being you know, from migrant backgrounds and working together like, you know, having foster carers with mostly white British and having cleaners and mostly Latin Americans or from other countries, you know, in, but at the same time, they are having the same problems. You know, there’s they’re fighting for the same for better conditions of work. And that’s the good thing about this as about, about our organisation, that we all are fighting for the same cause and we are all united through that.
KATHERINE
Yeah, incredible. It’s so good to hear a bit about the history as well like how you started out as just one branch and now 11 branches and all the people involved. It’s really, yeah, exciting to hear about it. And yeah, I guess I’m like, within that I’m really interested in like, how you organise, how are you building power, because it feels that you’re growing a lot. It’s grown so much since it started and what is there like, yeah, they’re a bit of the details of how you’re winning? Because there are wins that are happening for workers rights that IWGB are leading. And I’m wondering if you could share a bit with us about yeah, how you’re building, how you’re building that power.
HENRY
I mean, yeah, we’re building that power through educating our members to make them understand that nothing is going to change in this country if we don’t get involved. And that’s why we always say to the workers or anybody who joined the union: We need to get involved, we need to be the ones leading the struggle, nobody’s going to change this for us. It’s us who are going to create this change. You know, history has shown that it’s the workers who have gone on the streets who have been, you know, who have organised in order to make big changes.
That’s what the ideology has been doing over the years. And through that education, we are getting, as I said, we know provided the trainings in order to, for them to, to understand what they need to make those changes, but also in terms of working with other organisations, working in solidarity with many other groups that we need in order to win our campaigns or win our struggles.
As in, solidarity is very important, not just within a union, but also outside the union. That’s why the IWGB has been working, you know, with with organisations like Black Lives Matter, with with many MPs, with Latin American Women’s Rights, with Settle. We helped with with for helped Europeans apply for citizenship; and many other organisations that have, you know, been supporting us. But we’ve been working together because at the end of the day, one of the one of the things that these noises about workers rights is about grades and they big community because we have many other problems also, not just in their workplace, but in other areas.
And that’s what we try to build in the union: this kind of solidarity but also a community that is here to stay, but also that is here to get involved whenever we need support.
And one of the most important thing I think, is to make those workers or those leaders feel that they are part of a community, you know? That they’re not just fighting for the rights at work, but they are part of the community.
KATHERINE
Yeah, absolutely. And I guess, like, kind of linked to that you mentioned that the IWGB like came out of a frustration with some of the bigger unions, and it feels like sort of implicitly you’re talking a lot about the the ways that the IWGB is different. But I wonder if you could just explain that a little bit more for people who may be listening who don’t know so much about union organising?
HENRY
Yeah, I think I think one of the big problems that I’ve seen and I felt when I was I was even an official one of the unions, big unions and one of the things that they don’t understand the problems that we have, especially like as migrants, and they don’t they don’t care about organising certain sectors. Because I think they see that you know, they don’t want to agitate, they don’t want to you know, they they don’t want to be in on the streets or you know, they’re not used to that and i think that’s that’s a challenge for them.
But also they don’t want to put resources you know, these big unions have got lots of money in their accounts, but they still don’t don’t dare to organise workers who have been exploited. You see during this pandemic, how many workers going through a very difficult situation? Because I think most of most of most of the big unions are just interested to organise the big sectors, not not unorganised workers and or marginalised workers.
And I think this is something that should change. I mean, big unions should be organising these sectors, in every workplace. We’ve seen, we’ve seen, we’ve seen an example for example, in universities, every time if you go now to any university in the UK, all the outsourced workers, surely they are exploited. It 100% that’s happening. And we’ve seen, every time we go to any university to organise these workers, these big unions said to us, ‘Oh, we, this is these are our members!’ You know? They claim their members, but they’re never there to help them. And that’s the problem.
They don’t want you to go there to organise, but they don’t they don’t help them either. So they don’t, you know, they should be putting resources into helping them. But this is what is happening in every workplace. You know, there’s big unions in big buildings like you know, organising workers in government department, for instance. But you see there the outsourced workers like cleaners, security guards, they’re not organised by these unions.
And that’s a problem that we have, you know, when we try to organise with them that we weren’t felt supported with, they weren’t, they didn’t want to put resources in our struggle, and that’s why we decided like to end up leaving and that’s what as I said, people who were here before in the IWGB came out of the beginnings as well having the same issues.
ALI
Yeah, that makes sense. And sounds super frustrating that they’re not not doing that. But it’s great that the IWGB has has taken up that role. And yeah, you mentioned solidarity. And that’s what was coming to mind when you were talking about the all the different people in your union working together, like recognising the different, different, but connected fights that is going on, right? Sounds super powerful, and yeah, really inspiring. And I know there’s now 11 branches. And so I don’t want you to like pick necessarily, which is like the ‘most important’ or anything like that, but like, what do you think, like the key battles that you’re facing right now?
I think for us, I don’t I don’t need to pick any I think for for us and myself, especially as General Secretary, I mean, all the branches are very important, you know, we’re fighting for the workers to change. If we could have more branches, we have more workers and have more resources to help more workers, we will do it, you know?
KATHERINE
Yeah.
HENRY
I mean, all of, all of our members in each of the branches, they are here because they are going through a very difficult situation. They don’t, they want to change their their situation in terms of better pay, in terms of better conditions, in terms of workers rights. But I think we have something in common: we’re fighting exploitation. And we tried to change as I said, we’re trying to change the system that is unfair against all these workers, you know, it might be yoga teachers with having problems with, with sexual harassment at work or, or being, you know, underpaid; like foster carers not having workers rights or private hire drivers who work for Uber and other operators, not having the workers’ rights, you know, not having a proper pay; like couriers, who, they are in the same situation without workers’ rights. But also, you know, being, being not paid properly, you know, a proper wage, and other problems that they have. You know, with cleaners, getting fighting outsourcing University and fighting outsourcing as well.
So I think for us, we want to fight any kind of exploitation in our union, whether it be outsourcing whether it be the gig economy. At the moment, obviously we are our concentration is on outsourcing, and the gig economy, because that’s a big problem at the moment. In the in the UK, I mean, of our struggles. Because the members will represent the majority come from those, you know, from those sectors, but obviously, we have other other branches that are or not in the gig economy, but they still are fighting for better pay, like cycle instructors, for instance, who are now balloting for a strike, who are also kind of fighting outsourcing as well, because they are outsourced by the Council.
ALI
Right, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, obviously, fighting exploitation wherever it is, sounds like the right thing to do, of course. Do you think, I think like, with like the battle against Uber and things like that there’s been high profile cases. Do you think there are any battles like that, that are on the cusp of like, any significant changes for you right now?
HENRY
Yeah, I think we have had, I think we have been successful in getting you know, the Uber case, the Uber ruling, it hasn’t come just you know, because they want to give that. They have given us it because we’ve been in the courts, we’ve been on the streets, we’ve been fighting, it’s been a long struggle. And the same, like, Deliveroo also has given some workers rights recently. I mean, some, some, some benefits. But that is something that has happened.
And because we’ve also been challenging them, I think there’s still a lot of work to do, you know, this corporation is going to keep fighting because they want to keep that model for them that are making, you know, people who are investing in them, they, they want to, you know, get the millions that they want to get out of it. But this comes as, as on the back of the workers you know, on the on the on the work that they do. And the suffering that they go through, by not being paid properly, or by not being given the conditions that they’re supposed to have, they, I mean, they should have.
KATHERINE
Yeah.
HENRY
But I think also in terms of outsourcing I think nothing is going to change, as I said: is it us who need to change. Outsourcing, better pay is not going to, you know, even the government, when they raise the payment, they raised 10, you know, 5p or the or 20p or something. And we have gone to many places and got London Living Wage to £10.85 where workers were getting their minimum wage with £8-something now. So, you know, we are creating this change, I think we can we can do we can keep doing these changes, because there is a lot of organisations and businesses that are paying minimum wage when they are getting millions or billions in their accounts. And, you know, this is something that we is happening everywhere. So I think it’s for a reason as to keep changing it for the better.
KATHERINE
Yeah, absolutely. I guess like, in terms of the struggle for workers’ rights and improving conditions, like you have a lot of values in your politics that you are expressing out in the world on the streets and in the work that you’re doing, and your organising. I guess, um, the next question is kind of more internal to the IWGB and wondering about the value, how these values live within the union. Like, in terms of the way that you organise with each other, the structures that you have, the way you make decisions, these sorts of things? Be great to hear a bit about that.
HENRY
I mean, as someone, myself, especially as General Secretary, and the people who have been leading the union from the, from the from the start, we as I said, we are a union that have come from, from from from, you know, from coming come out from big unions, because we didn’t have that support. But also, most of our members, and myself, I used to work in the cleaning industry, for instance. I suffered exploitation, I was a low paid worker, I didn’t have rights in terms of better conditions, in terms of sick pay, holiday, you know, pensions, in terms of equality. But we also just have basic conditions.
So, as an organisation, but also the thing, the thing is that I, I also suffer like the harassment and the bullying that comes with it in my, in my workplace, because of the work I used to do. And that’s what happened with many cleaners for instance, in this country, who go through very hard situations. And obviously, as an organisation, we want to be an example of an employee, for instance. And one example is, for instance, in our union, the cleaner gets the same as the general secretary, in terms of being paid an hour. So we got, you know, we pay £3 more than the London Living Wage, for instance, and the cleaner is paid the same.
The structures of our union, our, you know, our union, is led by migrant workers. And we try this to be the case, we try to that we try always, our structures that create are created to have those people in power, like people like myself, and other people who come from my background, who have been through these difficult situations to be on the leadership positions, and be the ones who are taking the decisions for the whole union.
For instance, we have an Executive Committee, which is formed by officials from each of the branches. In some branches they have their women’s officer in some branches, they have BME officer. So we tried to balance the situation. So we, you know, the union have what we fight in the outside, in terms of, you know, the workers who are like migrants and being exploited: we want them to be the leaders in our union. And the ones who are leading and taking decisions in our organisation because they are the ones who understand better the problems that we face in each of the industries and they are the ones better to lead this organisation.
So in terms of sick pay, holiday, pensions, for instance, we fought outsourcing at the University of London, I fought for equality in terms of having the same conditions for cleaners, for instance, with someone who works directly for the university which is a professor which is someone who works in finance or whatever.
So in our union, we copied a model for our employees. So everybody in the union, they have six months full paid sick pay, they have like 30 holidays, 30 days holidays, they have like we have the pensions kind of the same as University of London. So this is an example that we you know, we are giving our staff something that we are fighting for in workplaces.
We also have we also have representatives, for instance we represent the staff because obviously we are a union. But we also when we when we were fighting for, for workers to be heard in every workplace. So we have that as well in our union, we have representatives who are representing the staff, the views of the staff, and we listen to them for their concerns or for anything they need in order to make that you know, their job, a good place to work.
KATHERINE
Thank you for telling us all that it’s incredible. I mean, just like the especially the real material things like that what you’re fighting for out in the world, materially you are making sure are happening in your workplace. And it’s not just words, which can often happen with some with some of the politics. That feels really amazing to hear.
Yeah, we and we do that despite being on a small organisation. It’s not, it’s not easy, but, you know, I think we had to we have to do what we are fighting for, we have to show those values in our organisation that would that’s why we tried to do.
KATHERINE
Yeah, absolutely. I think one one thing that’s sort of coming to my mind just as sort of curious about is sort of how you care for each other, like how you take care when there’s so much to fight for. There’s so many urgent struggles right now. And and how everybody is able to keep going and not get so exhausted, because the fight is long and hard. And just interested in how that how that work is shared, how people are cared for within the union? That’s a question that’s coming to mind.
HENRY
Yeah, I mean, our organisation has been growing so quickly, you know, we were we jumped into the water. We don’t know, not knowing how to swim. That’s what happened at the IWGB, we, none of us, we’ve been experts, everybody who’s been involved in the union. None of us have been expert in trade unions for instance: myself, I used to be cleaner. A porter at the University of London. Now I’m the General Secretary. But I didn’t have experience before in this country. I lived 20 years. But for 10 years, I didn’t know about unions, I didn’t know about social movements. I wasn’t involved in any of that. But I, I got involved because exploitation, I was I was having in my workplace. And that’s why I became a member of the union. And then I became an official. And I’ve been, you know, so we’ve been, we’ve been working ways of ensuring that, you know, we win campaigns that we organise, but we also, we put structures in place, in order to make sure everybody has the tools to do the, you know, to do the job that they do as officials or as representatives.
In terms of our staff, we will, you know, we look after our staff, as I said before, in terms of in terms of our officials and people who are like organising, we normally try to, er, every branch have officials. So every branch, decide they are kind of autonomous in decision making in terms of campaigns and organising. And we have the support from the central union as well. So we try to implement more staff in order to support branches, but we also provided them with trainings that they need. And we tried, we’ve tried to implement things in order to help them to do their job better.
But we also have meetings, regular meetings, with branches, we have meetings, branches have monthly meetings as well. And yeah, we’re trying to form structures in order to you know, make sure that everybody is happy, and everybody is is doing their work without getting exhausted.
ALI
Yeah, sounds really amazing. And I think, yeah, super practical, as as Katherine was saying, like the material ways that you’re organising, make sense. It aligns with what you’re fighting for. And the fact that you’re a small organisation, doing what you say, others should do, mean, it’s is even more example of like, why the hell are the universities not doing it this way? Why are the big corporations not doing it? if you can do it, anyone could do it, right? You’re, you’re an example. And this the stories of how, like your story of how you you’ve gone from being a porter to the General Secretary shows how that leadership has actually been put into place and the how the structures, you’re not you’re not just like a member of a union, where you go to them for help, and they deliver a service. You’re, you’re trained and empowered to work with with one another to get what you need. And that’s, that’s what it’s all about, right? It’s incredible.
So I guess, like, part of what this podcast is about is that people who don’t know about your organisation might be listening and might be getting inspired by you by your struggle. If someone’s listening, and they they want to get involved, or they want to know more about just union organising, in general, what would what would you suggest them to do?
HENRY
Yeah, I will say that, as I said, from as I said, at some point in a conversation, not, nothing is going to change if we don’t get involved. For any industry where we are, you know, getting, working in a low paid job, not having good conditions of employment, having bad treatment, in terms of how we’ve been treated, we are treated as workers, not having rights at work.
This all these problems, even like in the nannies, for instance, in the nannies branch, we have people where they were having problems with the visa, so is it with a immigration system that it needs changing, as well. It’s not just about workers’ rights it’s about these problems that the workers have, with the visas for instance. I think we need to organise more, we need to join a union. It’s such an important tool to get, you know, what you want in your workplace to get a tool where you can, you know, talk to your employer, or have your voice been heard by your employer.
Since I’ve been a member of the union, I’ve, my life has changed completely in terms of, you know, how I was treated at work, who I was. I had a voice, you know, in my workplace like, that I didn’t have before. The exploitation I suffered in my workplace change completely when I joined a union when I was part of the union, when we formed this big community. Not just in the union, but in my workplace, with it with workers who are having all sorts of problems.
But also this community in the University where I used to work for instance, where we unite with people who worked directly for the university, who would have would never even talk when we were in the workplace because we, you know, we, they do their work, we do our work. And some of the time though we don’t speak the language, but through the union will enable to, to get together, you know, even to have like, some salsa dancing, you know, see people salsa dancing like Latinos with someone who is from, you know, from like, from the UK that they have never even met. And it’s such, it’s such an I think, I think the union have a lot of these things. But I think it’s very important that we can, we can get organised. And we can fight together for a cause.
Because as I said, things are not going to change, especially with the pandemic, especially with Brexit. What’s happening now, the situation is becoming even worse. Employers have taken taken advantage of the pandemic to worsen workers rights. And with Brexit, as well. Many employers are also taking advantage of what’s happening to get rid of workers. And these are lots of unfair situation that happened in that moment.
And if we want to change workers’ rights for the better in this country, just by you know, joining a union and getting organised, get together and fight for better working conditions. That’s it.
ALI
Amazing, yeah, that’s so good. And I really like that. The idea of salsa dancing as part of like the community, it’s like, obviously, we want to get out and fight. We want to win win campaigns, we want to change things. But it’s also about more than, not, you’re not just a worker, you’re you’re also people, you want to build that relationship with each other. You want to build that enjoyment and life outside of that. But I think you’ve said it a few times now, but nothing, nothing is gonna change unless we do something about it. So that that’s that’s sticking with me from this conversation. And anyone listening, I encourage you to get out there and join the IWGB or any other great genuine union that’s out there. Yeah, thank you so much for this, this conversation. I’m feeling really inspired by it.
KATHERINE
Thanks so much, Henry. It’s been great talking to you.
HENRY
Thank you. Thank you.
ALI
Thanks once again to Henry Chango Lopez for joining us on this episode of the Resist and Renew podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @hchlopez and the IWGB Twitter account is @IWGBunion.
Thanks as always to Klaus for our intro and backing music.This song is called Neff and you can follow Klaus @klausmusic. Thanks also to Kareem Samara for the interlude music. You can find more of his tracks at SoundCloud Kareem Samara Music.
To find out more about Resist and Renew you can check out our website, ResistRenew.com. We’re on all the socials and on our website there’s also links to transcripts of all our episodes of this season and the last one.
Thanks for joining us and catch you next time. Bye!
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