CLEANERS at La Retraite Roman Catholic Girls’ School in south London were celebrating today after they won their battle for trade union recognition.

The outsourced cleaners, the majority of whom are Latin American migrants, went on strike for several days in March in a dispute over what they described as “wage theft, “trade union victimisation” and “inadequate health and safety procedures” including a lack of full sick pay.

The strike saw the cleaners win a 24 per cent pay rise, parity in sick pay with in-house staff, improved health and safety procedures and the majority recovery of their stolen wages.

But La Retraite’s contractor Ecocleen continued to refuse to voluntarily recognise United Voices of the World (UVW) as their union, activists said.

The organising of the cleaners saw them emerge victorious after the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), the statutory body responsible for oversight of collective bargaining, ruled that over half of the workers were in the union and therefore Ecocleen must recognise UVW.

Magaly Quesada, one of the strike leaders, said: “Recognition was the one thing that we were missing after our victory in March, and I’m delighted that we’ve now won that too!

“We deserve to be able to negotiate with our employer, we do the work, so it should never be the case that we have no say over our pay or working conditions.”

UVW organiser Petros Elia said: “This victory is a real testament to the tenacity of our members.

“It wasn’t an easy fight, but they were determined that their voice be heard and that they be able to sit across the table from their employer and be able to negotiate as equals.”