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Private companies

UNISON supports over 67,000 members employed by Private Contractors working across the public sector.  Our members carry out a wide range of jobs including hospital cleaners, environmental health officers, school meals workers and call centre workers.

Three Companies organising project
 
This year has seen UNISON testing a dynamic organising approach, working together with sister US union, the Service Employees International Union.
 
The Three Companies project aims to trial the methods used successfully by the SEIU in organising workers employed by three of the key multinational companies active in UK public services – Compass, Sodexo and Aramark.
 
Workers who are employed by private companies such as these have some of the lowest wages and worst working conditions in the public sector and often the lowest levels of unionisation too. With increasing privatisation and fragmentation of public services, there are important lessons for the whole of the union in understanding how to organise these groups of workers.
 
The Three Companies project has started a number of organising initiatives among ancillary and catering staff in a range of locations: North Devon hospitals, Sheffield , Reading and Westminster schools, South Bucks Health and Southampton Universities  NHS Trust.  In this Region Cambridge NHS Foundation Trust (Addenbrookes Hospital)  has been the site of a major initiative.. Other potential sites have also been identified.
 
Each of these initiatives involves the national project team working with regional and local branch representatives to identify key workplace issues, put together a local organising committee and support them in putting pressure on the employer to achieve a better result. In the process, the workplace is organised in a sustainable way and recruitment and density figures are improved.
 
 In January the project saw its first major victory when Sodexo conceded to UNISON’s demands after months of union pressure and two days of industrial action, and granted full Agenda for Change terms and conditions for cleaners, porters and cooks in the North Devon Health Trust. It meant lump sum payments of up to £3,600 for staff, as well as improved salaries, sick pay and holiday entitlements.  In the process, membership increased to 95% from 32% and new activists were enlisted.
 
The Three Companies project will run until September 2010 when it will be evaluated and recommendations made for lessons the union can learn for organising in future.NISON has established a project to increase organisation in 3 private catering and cleaning companies:

 

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