CLEANERS at a central London hotel have secured a “major victory” by protesting and winning back nearly £5,000 of furlough wages denied to them.

Today, the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) said that the staff at the London Elizabeth Hotel near Hyde Park will be paid £4,733 in Covid-19 job support back pay owed to them by Pridegreen.

HMRC’s public records show that the cleaning company claimed £10-25,000 per month in furlough support between December 2020 and June 2021 despite failing to pay workers in full during the same period.

After the firm refused to reimburse the staff, IWGB, which represents mainly migrant workers, escalated the case to arbitration service Acas before the cleaners staged a demonstration at the hotel on October 2.

The protest, covered in the Morning Star, involved 25 cleaners and supporters chanting “London Elizabeth, pay our wages now!” in the lobby of the hotel and on the steps outside.

IWGB general secretary Henry Chango Lopez said: “This is a major victory for our members and it comes at the end of a long campaign against Pridegreen who left their workers without a livelihood at the height of the pandemic.

“It should not be the responsibility of low-paid workers and their unions to take direct action just to get employers to pay their workers the money they are legally entitled to.

“But this win is a reminder of why it is so vital that unions continue to organise in these workplaces to ensure exploitative employers are not able to prey on migrant and marginalised workers.”