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A strike said to be the longest lasting in the history of the City of London has come to an end after cleaning bosses agreed to pay their migrant workforce the London Living Wage.

After 58 days of strike action, cleaners from the United Voices of the World Union (UVW) , made up entirely of migrants from South America, ended their “indefinite strike” over working conditions at 100 Wood Street.

Cleaners claimed that more than half of their workforce had been sacked without justification and that the company was refusing to pay them the London Living Wage.

Union general secretary Petros Elia revealed they could not disclose the exact terms of the agreement, but the cleaning company had agreed to pay workers the minimum wage and “resolve other issues”.

He told the Standard: “The cleaning industry is brutally competitive and whenever a new company takes over a contract they have to promise to do it for a cheaper fee.

“They can’t do this without cutting staff so they sacked half of the workers.

“The cleaners tried to resolve it through negotiations but the company wasn’t going to accept that.”

The union ran protests throughout the city for 52 days, gaining support from Unite and anarchist group Class War.

Mr Elia said that the cleaners had never been part of a union before and their efforts inspired all members.

He added: “These cleaners had never been members of a union before and had never been on strike before so for us to see them so willing to go on indefinite strike was so moving.

“We didn’t know at the beginning how long it would last so we just took it day by day.

“This was the longest strike in the history of the City of London and the longest strike by an entirely migrant workforce in the UK”.

Mr Elia added that the spirit shown by the migrant group was a great example of migrant workers benefitting the city.

He said: “It’s quite significant in these times when people are debating the role of migrants.

“In our view it’s one of many examples of migrants not lowering wages in the country but actually bringing wages up.”

The Evening Standard has approached Thames Cleaning for comment.