Help us support Elga: a UCL cleaner in hospital after working on a zero-hours contract while heavily pregnant.

Elga is a cleaner at UCL. She is outsourced by the university to Sodexo, a multinational cleaning company, and, like many of her colleagues, many of whom are also BAME women, she is on a zero-hours contract.

This contract means she doesn't know how many hours of work she'll be given week to week. Elga has a 1 year old daughter and is pregnant with her second child. She was worried about telling anyone about her pregnancy because she feared she would be given fewer hours, and she needed to continue working to support herself and her daughter.

Eventually, when she did ask, Elga was told that she had no right maternity leave due to her nature as a casual worker and no right to paid annual leave. Due to this, she saw no other option but to continue working until she was heavily pregnant, doing very heavy work.

Eventually she managed to contact the IWGB union and, after their intervention, her right to maternity leave was recognised. However this assistance came too late and she recently ended up in hospital as the conditions at work took a severe toll on her health.

As a single mum on this precarious contract, Elga is facing tremendous financial difficulties.

Her fellow IWGB union members have decided to set up this Just Giving page to support her as she comes out of hospital and enable her to buy a mattress and all the essentials for her new baby.