"They hoped that we would be scared because of our status as immigrants and just accept the sackings," said José, who asked that his last name not be used by the media. "Now the company wants to wash its hands of the whole matter. But we have rights. We are employed by Lancaster as cleaners. It's not our fault that Enron went down. Lancaster should provide us other cleaning jobs." The bulk of the cleaners are immigrants, mostly from Latin America.

José was one of a number of workers who, having previously read Perspectiva Mun-dial, contacted the Militant to publicize their case. Another worker, Beto, described what happened on the night of the sackings.

"We were working our regular 9:00 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. shift," Beto said. "At about four in the morning the cleaning company's representative arrived at the Enron site allegedly to supervise the security system's cameras, hoping that he could find an excuse for disciplining someone. This is an old tactic used by the company to intimidate us. After he found nothing, he called us to a meeting to inform us that we were to lose our jobs."

"The bosses knew about the Enron developments long before but waited until the last moment, hoping that the workers wouldn't have enough time to respond," explained José. "But people were very angry. When told to go home, we all refused to leave until we received a signed statement that we would be relocated to another job.

"The Lancaster manager's response was to threaten to call the cops," José said. "It was a 'if-you-move-I-shoot' gunman's tactic. After an hour and a half, he started to carry out the threat to call the cops and we decided to leave."

If Lancaster thought the matter was over, they underestimated the workers. Later that morning, 18 of the fired cleaners gathered at the Lancaster company's headquarters in Keston, Kent. They were able to talk with senior managers but got the same push off.

Later that night the workers organized a street meeting to map out the next stages in their fight for employment rights. "Do we need a trade union to take up questions like this?" asked another cleaner, Ricardo. The cleaners, he explained earn £5.25 per hour, and receive no premium for either night work or overtime (£1 = US$1.46). "They treat us like animals. But just because we're immigrants doesn't mean we're not human beings."

"It's not unusual for entire crews to be summarily dismissed like we were. The difference this time is that we've decided to fight," José said. "After all, with the economic prospects, alternative work is going to be more difficult to find."

The workers have visited the Citizens Advice Bureau to find out about their legal rights and are planning a campaign of protests. In response, the company has offered eight of the 23 employees relocation to new jobs. "The eight refused," said José. "We're not accepting their divide-and-rule tactics. Everyone should get relocated."

Yonatan Mosquera is a member of the Young Socialists.  
 
 
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