Workers at Charing Cross Hospital in Fulham are set to hold a protest picnic outside Charing Cross hospital on Fulham Palace Road on Thursday 4th July at 3.00pm 

The porters, cleaners and domestic staff are employed by Sodexo and the picnic protest is a novel way to highlight what their trade union, the GMB, call poverty pay at Charing Cross Hospital.

Last month has saw the GMB organise three hospitals protest at the NHS Imperial Trust. Charing Cross in Fulham, St Marys in Paddington and Hammersmith Hospital workers were all involved in protests over wages. 

Many of Sodexo workers are paid the minimum wage and the company refuse to pay any additional wages. The GMB have been told that there may be a pay increase next year however the workers say they cannot spend a promise and have been living on the minimum wage for too long and need their wages increased this year.

Michael Dooley the local GMB Union officer said: “The general public will be surprised to hear that the staff in Charing Cross are paid only the minimum wage.  Porters who care for patients and the deceased, cleaners who clean the blood, sick and other waste and the staff who keep the hospital moving 24 hours a day deserve more than the minimum wage.

“A picnic protest is a novel way of drawing attention to the plight of the staff working in Charing Cross Hospital, many staff are new to Britain and will appreciate the efforts by the union to get them involved in this after work protest”