When I first heard about them, I found it hard to believe that ‘Zero Hours‘ contracts were legal. They seem to go against the very essence of what a contract of employment should be. How can it be employment if no hours are stated? And it is surely unfair to ask anyone to make themselves always available for work – and so unavailable for any other work – without suitable recompense.
Working along the line of protesters
Essentially they seem a legal fraud which allows employers not to offer a proper contract to workers, a loophole that I hope our next responsible government will fix (I’m beyond hoping much from the current coalition, tired of reading articles about their policies that have to be prefixed with the comment “this is not satire” because the reality is so ridiculous – and constantly having to think “You just couldn’t make it up“.)
It wasn’t an easy location to work at. The pavement on this part of Oxford St is fairly narrow, and there was a bus shelter at this point making it narrower still. The police were intent on allowing shoppers to pass by, and into Sports Direct who the protest was aimed at. They kept most of the protesters in a single line along the front of the shop and tried hard to keep an opening into the shop front (though it was easier to enter by the main Plaza entrance and the side door, neither of which the protesters wanted to be on. And they tried to keep photographers and others from blocking the pavement, making it difficult to work. Protesters can and did take very little notice of the police, moving a few inches when requested and moving back as the officers moved away, but as a journalist I have to be a little more cooperative.
Police ask protesters to move the banner across the entrance
So rather more of the pictures than usual were taken, like the one above looking along the line of protesters, along with some from the opposite edge of the pavement, and from under the bus shelter, and rather fewer from the kind of distance I would prefer to work at directly in front of the protest. Of course I did move and take pictures, but it isn’t the same as being able to stand in position and watch things developing.
There didn’t seem to be a great deal to photograph, and after around three quarters of an hour I was beginning to get bored. I might have drifted away to one of the nearby pubs (a couple of ones I like within a five minute walk) or gone to a nearby park to eat my sandwiches as it was lunchtime, but fortunately one of the organisers who knows me had told me that things might get more interesting to photograph around then.
It looked like it was time to occupy Sports Direct
So I was ready and waiting when the protesters surged inside the shop, and went with them, keeping just behind the leading three or four. I knew that they would not be wanting to cause any damage and didn’t expect any real trouble. Sports Direct security personnel were standing beside the escalators leading down into the main shop area in the basement and as expected they stood to block the protesters, who argued with them but didn’t attempt to push them aside.
It was very crowded inside the shop, but I was able to step a little outside into the Plaza entrance to get a little distance – though this is taken with the wide-angle zoom at 16mm. Going back in with the protesters things were a little more crowded.
Movement was a little limited by the crush of protesters and the shop displays, but I was able to move around a little, and get into a good position to photograph the police officer coming in to talk to one of the protesters – the man holding the large megaphone.
I took a more tightly framed image of the conversation with the 16-35mm at around 24mm, then zoomed out and moved back just few centimetres to get the leaflet in the foreground of the conversation to tell what the protest was about. After the police had conveyed the request to the protesters that they should leave, they did so. The occupation only lasted a little over 5 minutes, but in that time I took as many pictures as in the rest of the hour of protest. And of course it was these pictures that made the story.
More about the protest and more pictures at End Zero Hours Contracts – Sports Direct.
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My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated are by Peter Marshall and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
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