OUTSOURCED migrant cleaners at a prestigious £24,000-a-year private school have had their pay unlawfully slashed after holding their first-ever strike ballot.

Cleaners at James Allen’s Girls’ School (JAGS) in London had their pay cut by 12 per cent from £13.15 to £11.55 an hour, just days after conducting a strike ballot on July 5. 

The cleaners were voting for a pay rise next year in line with the London Living Wage, the same sick pay as teachers, and a halt to attempts to reduce the weeks they work.

Proposals to cut the number of hours worked by five weeks will save the school only £20,000 a year, while the school boasts an annual income of £25 million, their union UVW says.

The pay cut was administered by contractor DB Services, which employs them. 

UVW says that the cut occurred with the full knowledge of the head of JAGS, who earns over £200,000 a year. 

The union is now commencing legal action and declaring strike dates for when the school reopens in September.

Cleaner Nelsa Jimenez said: “It is blackmail what they’re doing — forcing us to agree to a cut in hours or a cut in pay.

“I don't feel valued. I feel outraged. We are people. They don’t treat us like people.” 

UVW general secretary Petros Elia said the “clearly unlawful” pay cut has left the cleaners, some of whom have been at the school for over a decade, in “dire straits.”

He added: “A more sick, more Dickensian situation is hard to imagine.

“Our members will fight this all the way through the courts and on the picket line.”

DB Services has been contacted for comment.