Over 200 strikers and others from the South West Region attended a victory rally despite the winter showers.
The outcome of the dispute will have reverberations around Sodexo. There are a number of contracts across public services – schools and hospitals – where Sodexo workers are still receiving less than their public sector co workers.
Workers on this site were unanimous in their views – the only chance of winning the terms and wages they deserve were through signing up the majority into the union and pressing the employer.
Even across in the USA and France there has been congratulations sent to the North Devon workers by the US union SEIU and the French CGT. They too are campaigning to organise workers from Sodexo.
Membership in North Devon more than doubled in 6 months, there are now 7 stewards where there was previously only 1 and the whole branch has been reinvigorated by the success.
The South West Region and the national 3 Companies Project worked very closely in partnership to ensure that progress was steady and solid, avoiding the temptation to use tactics that didn’t rely on mobilising the workers.
Regular mass meetings, regular newsletters, sign up campaigns based on one to one approaches by workers and getting a message out to the public based on what the workers saw as the issues for the community.
This success was partly based on winning allies and not ignoring the other people who use the hospital. So the Lord Mayor, Senior Consultants and voluntary organisations became part of the campaign. Over £210 was collected from Trust workers on the picket line.
The Trust workers wore stickers around the hospital on strike days. Local small businesses brought hot food and sandwiches to the picket lines, local residents facing the hospital put signs out in their gardens supporting the campaign.
In schools, colleges and local authorities we have the Workforce Code to use to campaign for the same terms and conditions, similar to Agenda for change in the hospitals. The campaign nationally moves on to find these contracts, to organise the workers and to win real improvements in the lives of the low paid workers in the private sector.
