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University College London is a financial powerhouse, but its contract cleaners are forced to live on poverty wages and provost Malcolm Grant has no plans to change that
The scene outside the office of Malcolm Grant, president and provost of University College London, makes for an arresting sight. There, in a sealed glass cabinet, is the preserved body of social reformer Jeremy Bentham, stuffed out with hay and dressed in his usual clothes in accordance with his last will.
Bentham, who died soon after co-founding the college in 1826, is venerated as “the godfather of UCL” for his “advocacy for the poor and of human rights” — and it is customary for students in their graduation gowns to be photographed here by proud parents.
But were Bentham alive today, one shudders at what he'd make of the Scrooge-like actions of the university's head, Professor Grant, and the escalating row over the poverty wages he pays to campus cleaners.
The UCL Living Wage Campaign, a coalition of cleaners, students, alumni and academic staff formed two years ago, has demanded that contract cleaners at UCL get paid the living wage of £7.85 an hour — the threshold needed to survive in London — instead of the minimum wage of £5.80 an hour.
But Professor Grant, 63, the second-highest paid university head in the country, whose remuneration of £404,000 last year comfortably exceeded the heads of Oxford (£327,000) and Cambridge (£246,000), has rebuffed them.
He insists that paying the 180-odd contracted cleaners a living wage might appear “seductive”, but is “a luxury” the university cannot afford.
It leaves UCL as the only university in the Bloomsbury area paying poverty wages. Five others — LSE, Birkbeck, the School of Oriental and African Studies, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary — have adopted the London living wage for directly employed and contracted staff. Goldsmiths has committed to follow suit when its cleaning contracts are renewed.
The living wage is an idea that has been gaining traction. In 2008 Boris Johnson committed the GLA to paying it, and Labour leadership contender Ed Miliband has called for a living wage to be implemented nationwide, with companies offered a tax break in return. Barclays, HSBC, KPMG and the Royal London Hospital are among more than 100 employers to adopt and champion the London living wage.
Yet asked by the Evening Standard to explain his position, Professor Grant repeatedly declined our request for an interview, sending this statement: “UCL has no plans to join the London living wage campaign. If we were to demand that our contractors pay the living wage, this would result in significant additional cost or a loss of jobs among staff working on UCL premises.”
But at a community outreach event held in UCL's Jeremy Bentham Room — in which “Bentham's ethos of social inclusion” is repeatedly invoked by Professor Grant and his vice-provosts — I catch up with him to ask why he insists on paying cleaners poverty wages.
Before I can complete my question he (very courteously) says: “I know what you want to ask me, David. It's an interesting issue. But I am advised that paying contract cleaners the living wage would cost UCL £500,000 to £1 million a year. That's a big slug. And what I haven't got is a spare million pounds, okay?”
However, since his appointment in 2003, the New Zealand-born and educated provost has made the university into a financial powerhouse, raising £170 million in an alumni funding drive and taking UCL up the global league table from 34th to fourth, leapfrogging Oxford along the way.
Not only is UCL now one of the richest universities in the UK, posting a £12 million surplus in its accounts last year on a budget of £713 million, but Professor Grant has also overseen a pay revolution at the top of the college. When he joined in 2003, there were only three members of staff earning more than £200,000 a year, but that has jumped to 18. And 311 staff now earn more than £100,000, double the number of Cambridge and more than any university in Britain.
Greg Brown, a UCL undergraduate and co-originator of the campaign, says Professor Grant's 2009 travel expenses of £12,280 exceed the average annual salary of a UCL cleaner by 33 per cent.
Referring to the provost's stays at five-star hotels such as Le Royal Meridien in Abu Dhabi, he says: “If there are no available funds', how can he justify this extravagance or the explosion of highly paid staff since his arrival?”
Some cleaners at UCL wonder whether Professor Grant — who earns more in a fortnight than they get in a year — is out of touch with life at the bottom of the pile. Not only do they have miserable pay to contend with, the cleaners told the Standard, but unfairly fragmented and anti-social hours as well.
“I leave home at 4am to catch the night-bus for a three-hour shift starting at 5.30am,” says Ramon Guerrieri, 25, a Brazilian-born cleaner at UCL. “It's bad enough getting minimum wage, but to work for three hours in the morning, then return for another three-hour shift in the late afternoon is mad.”
He shakes his head. “Why can't UCL give me work for six hours in a row? I get £720 a month out of which I pay £440 for my rented room in Dalston, which leaves me a tenner a day for everything else. You can't survive on that in London. I've only been doing this six months, but already I feel ground down.” Another cleaner, Andy, 48, says that in the two years he's been working at UCL, his pay has remained pinned to the minimum wage. “Recently I requested a raise and the cleaning company said that if I asked again, or complained publicly, I would be looking for another job.”
Andy, also from South America, has reason to take the threat seriously. Last September, Ecuadorian cleaner Juan Carlos Benitez, employed by UCL contractor Office and General, was sacked and claimed in the press that he was fired for being “part of a campaign for justice for cleaners and for our human rights”. He has reputedly since been muzzled by a severance package. Andy says there are three cleaning companies with UCL contracts — Facilicom, ISS and O&G — and that all pay minimum wages to teams of cleaners for whom English is not the first language.
A spokesman for ISS said: “ISS are committed to the London living wage and enter into dialogue with our customers at every opportunity.” Facilicom and O&G declined to comment.
“My job,” Andy says, “is to clean the buildings on the Bloomsbury campus. I make sure the toilets are stocked, clean classrooms and offices, sweep corridors, empty recycle bins and if a toilet is blocked, I unblock it and mop up. At the end of the month, I take home £780 and try to pay household bills of over £1,250.
“You can't imagine the stress. Until a few months ago, my wife was also a cleaner [not at UCL] earning £600 a month, but her contract company let her go. We took a £5,000 loan, but the pressure has piled up and two months ago, my wife had a stroke. The doctors say it's from stress. They suspect there is still bleeding on the brain. My wife, you know, she is only 38, and I don't know if she will ever be the same again.”
Campaigner Mr Brown says: “The provost and UCL management are out of touch with ordinary people. We will not stand by while cleaners suffer such crippling low pay and are forced to work inhumane fragmented hours.” He and his fellow campaigners have secured a meeting with Professor Grant this month. But when I ask the provost whether he might change his mind, he says: “With looming government cuts of 35 per cent, do you understand the financial precipice over which universities are currently looking?”
I propose he might find the money by asking his staff earning more than £100,000 to take a one per cent pay cut (earlier this year Professor Grant said he'd take a 10 per cent cut), but he looks aghast: “Do you realise that I'm competing with Harvard to attract the best academics to make this the best university in the country?”
Surely, though, it can't be right to do so at the expense of their most vulnerable workers. Why doesn't he join me on the N73 night bus (where I'd first met some of his UCL cleaners) to see their punishing lifestyle for himself?
Professor Grant screws up his eyes. “You make your case well — and I appreciate your passion for the cause.” He begins to move away. “But now, I really do need to get back to the other guests for whom this event was intended.”
Reader views (16)
Whilst agreeing that these workers should be paid the London Living Wage and treated fairly and equally in all aspects of their employment, they are employed by a contract cleaning agency, not UCL, and it is the agency that sets their wages, not UCL - at least, that is my understanding of the way employment agencies work. I would be interested to know how much UCL is paying the agency per hour for these workers. Perhaps this is something that should be looked into. I have heard of instances where large companies and organisations have "contracted out" their services and the agencies charge the organisation three times as much (or even more) as they are paying the workers. This is especially the case where immigrant workers are concerned, and the practice is set to grow as more and more large organisations (e.g. Sainsbury's and other large supermarket chains - and now, clearly, top academic institutions) stop employing staff directly but contract out to agencies, thus relieving themselves of the responsibility and costs of a direct labour force.
- Pam, London, UK, 24/09/2010 11:20
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Well it seems UCL is like some many 'universities' more concerned with income and 'bums on seats' than fair pay.
Teaching and research academic's pay is pityful compared with their industrial comparators, admin and 'leaders' however seem to be doing very nicely thank you, the rest of the staff don't matter...
And I'm not surprised UCL have appointed someone from down under, a number of universities have gone that route, led by fat cat administrations (often without proper academic backgrounds) to appoint axe men in improve their profit margins...
Academic rigour in research, useful subjects taught, useful people at the end graduating with useful knowlege is what it should be about, nu-labia's attempt to keep the dross off the dole doesn't help either.
Its 'fresh meat week' soon (freshers week), fresh meat for the grinder, time for 'another prick in the halls' (with appologies to Pink Floyd) to pay the fat cats wages, and keep the cleaners busy cleaning up their irresponsible mess, without comeback for any of their actions, their money is far too important.
- John, Southampton, England., 24/09/2010 09:40
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Mark, Gerrymandered the point is they shouldn't be; economic migrants doing this work. Is that why the Tories haven't changed the rules! Cheap Labour?
- Fredrick, London, 24/09/2010 09:36
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Dear Ramon, Andy, Carlos and most, if not all, of the cleaners at UCL and anywhere else. I would just like to point out that you are economic migrants and you choose to come this country and ultimately that choice has forced you to take a job paying minimum wage. If you are finding London a little expensive to live then there are other places around the UK, where things are chepaer. You could even consider working in another country or returning home but whatever you decide to do, STOP MOANING, nobody has forced you to come here.
- Mark, Gerrymandered African Republic of Southwark, 24/09/2010 09:30
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It's not about which one is the best University. Its about paying a person enough money so that person can do the job, and live with dignity. Until these arrogant people, understand this point, "the workers" will strike, this case shows this mans education hasn't help him at all.
- Fredrick, London, 24/09/2010 08:34
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This man is deluded, why is he here anyway, are there no British to do the job? Send him back to New Zealand, he'll find the sheep there even easier to exploit. He's discusting and unworthy.
- Nigel Williams, Madrid Spain., 24/09/2010 07:47
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Looking at the BBC database of the public sector pay, just from UCL and not taking into account the UCL NHS Foundation Trust (where top salaries are likely to concentrate), there are 312 individuals reported to earn over £100,000. The reported total amount earned by these 312 individuals is a whooping £44,438,644 (yes, all this from 312 individuals). Putting a salary top cap of £100,000 (and with this amount anyone with a functioning brain can live in super extreme comfort) will free up £13,238,644. This is more than enough to pay everyone working at UCL decent living wages.
If this is not corruption, then the word has no meaning.
- Carlos, London, working at UCL, 23/09/2010 22:30
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If UCL does not have the money to run on civilised lines, then it should shut down.
It cannot carry on on the backs of vulnerable workers.
Our leaders seem to lack general education these days - maybe a does of humanities would help?
- Nick, London, 23/09/2010 22:27
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So, four hundred grand for the chief, & nine grand for the guy who cleans up the mess: Clearly, the value system working at UCL is that, while academics can live the life of Riley, underdog cleaners must take poverty on the chin, struggling to make ends meet - Bentham, we need you back!
- I N Dyson, Oxford, UK, 23/09/2010 22:02
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As a previous senior academic and current leader of a relatively small staff of professionals and administrators I have only one comment - GREED.
- Dr Deneys Schreiner, London, UK, 23/09/2010 21:36
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I find it intolerable that in London 2010 such exploitation of the grassroots workforce can still take place and yet be so impudently discussed as if it was a trivial matter. Isn't the government supposed to step in?
Obviously, Mr Grant has never spent a day of his life doing a manual job or at the bottom of a salary scale, and that both explains his ignorance - in the truest sense of the word - of the daily struggles faced by one of UCL's cleaners and the contempt towards them he so shamelessly displays.
I have worked as an administrator in HE for a number of years now. Mr Grant's axiom whereby fairness and equity have been taken ransom by the need to retain top professionals on abnormally inflated costs is both a self delusional lie and the root of all problems within the HE. This has gently led - among others - to higher and higher tuition fees for both UK and Overseas students, and a number of random policies such as the ones implemented at UCL. In reality, top HE management has only itself to blame for the vast amount of waste money that pours out from a number of cracks within the system: superinflated top salaries, superinflated overheads, ridiculous expenses claims, superinflated grant submissions to fund all the above etc etc
Of course Mr Grant will never share a bus trip with one of UCL's cleaners. In their facing their daily struggle, they know what being brave is about. How would you expect someone like Grant to have the notion of what courage is?
- Luca, London, England, 23/09/2010 21:33
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This also highlights again the outrageously high pay packages of these Provosts and Chancellors. They are another example of public sector pay that has spiralled out of control under Liebor and is going to milk the taxpayers for years to come through public pensions on quite ludicrous public salaries.
Time to stop all of this, or leave the country!!
Judging by the number of £m+ houses up for sale around here, there are many people selling up and taking their money with them before the sxxx finally hits the fan.
- Fuller Sheet, Guildford, 23/09/2010 15:04
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If the college can afford to pay him £400,000, they can afford to pay a living wage to their cleaners!
- Bleeding Heart Liberal, London, 23/09/2010 14:57
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Why does the Government not force through a law which forces through a decent wage such as in the case above? I do understand the economics but this is exploitation pure and simple.
- Liberal, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 23/09/2010 14:57
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In a word this is obviously EXPLOITATION and of course disgraceful. There can be no justification for a university of such stature as UCL paying any of its staff anything less than a living wage. Malcolm Grant and his cronies should be ashamed of themselves.
- Graham, Surrey, 23/09/2010 14:21
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Not for the first time a Provost of UC is deluded. Cambridge is the 'best University' in the country and UC is a Collge of London University; not a University.
- Dectora, London, 23/09/2010 14:19
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