Tough hours and layoffs can affect anyone working at the Big Four — including cleaners.
At EY, over a third of cleaning staff contracted to work at the firm’s London offices have been told their jobs are at risk. The proposed job cuts affect roughly 20 employees.
The workers are not directly employed by EY — the firm outsources cleaning services to the British subcontractor Mitie. Their union representatives told BI that at least 48 of the 55 cleaners for EY’s London offices walked off the job this week in protest.
Roughly 20 cleaners had formed a picket line outside the firm’s Canary Wharf office on Wednesday afternoon. Blaring horns and shouts could be heard from two blocks away when Business Insider arrived, disrupting the lunchtime buzz of Canary Wharf’s otherwise pristine corporate atmosphere.
Two suited men sipped beers on a restaurant terrace across the road, watching as the protesters shouted their demands for a reversal of plans to cut 37% of cleaning staff and better working conditions for outsourced workers.
They were joined by representatives from the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), a trade union that represents them.
Picket lines were set up at EY’s Canary Wharf office and the firm’s London Bridge HQ from Tuesday to Friday this week, and the strikes are scheduled to continue next week, the union said.
“Whilst partners at EY take home an average of £723,000 a year ($969,000), the already overworked cleaning workforce who make just £13.85 an hour are being told that over a third of their jobs are at risk,” said Henry Chango Lopez, IWGB’s general secretary.
Rosa Jarrin, a 63-year-old cleaner whose job is on the line, told BI she’s worked in EY offices for 15 years.
“I come to work sick or not. I give it everything I have,” she said.
When asked what would happen to her if she were laid off, she became emotional and said it was difficult to think about the future.
“I’m feeling really vulnerable because this is how I make my daily bread. I would like to keep working until I retire,” Jarrin said.
IWGB said cleaners had reported overwork before the redundancies were announced and that some had expressed concerns that if the proposed layoffs go ahead, they would push an “already high workload” onto a smaller number of staff.
Mitie has also introduced changes to workers’ shifts that disrupt childcare requirements or are untenable with second or third jobs that some of them have, Chango Lopez told BI.
Jimena Rosero, a 61-year-old who has been cleaning EY offices for the past two years, said Mitie had offered to extend her shifts from seven to eight hours. She said the company hadn’t specified what the future workload would look like, and that this worried her.
“I asked them, ‘If I stay, what’s going to happen to my job? If you fire 11 people in this office, am I going to have to clean two floors now?'” Jimena told BI.
Mitie is consulting with the cleaners and their representatives in the union about the proposed changes, a company spokesperson told BI.
Under British law, a consultation period of at least 30 days must be held if layoffs impact 20 or more employees.
“We are supporting colleagues during this difficult time, including exploring opportunities for redeployment as part of the consultation process,” the spokesperson said.
In email correspondence between the union’s legal team and Mitie, which BI has seen, the union said that they had been “given three completely different explanations for the proposed changes.”
These included an “alleged agreement with the client to reduce staff in order to secure the contract,” a “desire to change working hours from part-time to full-time,” and a “general improvement of the cleaning service.”
The cuts to cleaning staff come as EY grapples to recover from the post-pandemic slowdown in demand for consulting services and reshape operations for the AI future.
EY doesn’t report individual results for its UK business, but the growth rate for its Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa (EMEIA) division fell to 6.9% in the year ending June 30, 2024, down from 16.9%. In December 2024, the firm cut 150 jobs from its UK consulting division.
EY’s CEO and global chair, Janet Truncale, has initiated a significant restructuring of the organization’s business divisions since taking over as head of the firm last year.
EY confirmed to BI that Mitie provides its workplace and security services in the UK and that the consultation process is ongoing.
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