Consuelo Moreno Yusti (Russell Square)
Born 28th May, Cali, Colombia.
Consuelo Moreno Yusti is a cleaner at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and a trade union organiser.
“Change is possible when you make a commitment, believe in yourselves, and are organised, consistent and optimistic. We have shown that you can defeat outsourcing: something that for a long time people across the world thought was impossible.”
Consuelo Moreno Yusti, translated from Spanish by Luke Stobart.
Consuelo interrupted a law degree in Colombia to move to London in 2002, hoping to give her daughter better opportunities than she would otherwise have had. From 2004 she worked at SOAS, near Russell Square station, as part of their outsourced cleaning operations. After a new company took over the contract, she and her fellow workers were pressured into taking reduced hours, and were paid several months in arrears. At that time, they were being paid the national minimum wage of £5.20 per hour, rather than the London Living Wage, of around £7.20, they had no work benefits, such as sick pay, and no union recognition.
In 2006, Consuelo and her colleagues formed the Justice for Cleaners SOAS campaign, striving for union recognition, the London Living Wage, and the same pension, holiday and sick pay rights with those directly employed by the university. The first two conditions were met immediately. In 2014, after a sustained campaign of strike action, which forced the university to close parts of the building for health and safety reasons, Consuelo and her colleagues won some benefits including pension rights and increased sick and holiday pay. However, they continued to be exploited by outsourced firms, and still didn’t enjoy benefits equivalent to other university staff. The campaign continued until 2017, when the cleaning staff were brought back in-house, giving them equality with other university employees.
In 2015, a documentary, Limpiadores, directed by Fernando González Mitjáns, was made about Consuelo and the campaign. Following the campaign’s success, Consuelo has shared her experiences of organising with other workers and spoken about workers’ rights to many audiences, including at the University of Westminster and the Trades Union Congress.
Sources
Chakrabortty, Aditya ‘College Cleaners Defeated Outsourcing: They’ve Shown it can be Done’, The Guardian, 12th September 2017, < https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/12/college-cleaners-outsourcing-soas> [Accessed December 2020].
Moreno Yusti, Consuelo. “My Story”, <https://www.iamanimmigrant.net/consuelo-moreno-yusti> [Accessed December 2020].
Stobart, L. “‘Between Thorns and Roses’: How Migrant Workers Beat Outsourcing at SOAS”, Historical Materialism, 2017. https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/interviews/between-thorns-and-roses-how-migrant-workers-beat-outsourcing-soas [Accessed 24th February 2022] *The quote above is from this source.