Council cleaners celebrate after seeing off outsourcing threat

UNISON has notched up another victory preventing low-paid workers being outsourced to private firms.
Thanks to campaigning and pressure by the union’s Middlesbrough local government branch and Northern region, the local council has dropped plans to hive off the jobs of 140 cleaners, who feared for their pay and pensions if they were transferred.
The workers – who are among the lowest-paid staff at the local authority – were told their jobs were to be outsourced to a number of c