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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:

A podcast from Pluto Press where Henry is interviewed alongside two authors on labour, Eve Livingston and Jane Hardy

Solidarity Squad -- a new scheme from IWGB where friends and allies can provide material support for IWGB branches

List of IWGB branches: Charity Workers, Cleaners and Facilities, Couriers and Logistics, Cycling instructors, Foster care workers, Game workers, Nannies and au pairs, Security and receptionists, United private hire drivers, Universities of London, Yoga teachers. And there’s a general members branch if none of these apply to you!

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,