Guantanamo Bay Protest: The protest opposite Downing Street on Saturday 13th December 2003 was I think the first protest against the illegal detention camp that I attended, though there were many more later. Co-incidentally it took place on the day in Operation Red Dawn that US forces captured the deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near Tikrit in Iraq.
Opposite 10 Downing St, Whitehall. Mr Azmat Begg (father of Moazzam Begg), imprisoned without trial at Guantanamo Bay.
Saddam was held in prison in Baghdad in comfortable conditions, allowed to keep a diary, write poems, smoke cigars and even have his own private garden where he planted seeds for some months before being handed over for trial to the interim Iraqi government. Eventually he was found guilty of crimes against humanity and hanged at the end of 2006.
Protestors demonstrate opposite 10 Downing St, Whitehall for justice for those imprisoned without trial at Guantanamo Bay.
Those who were taken to Guantanamo – mostly innocent of any crimes – as we know were treated very differently. Subjected to humiliation, frequent torture and caged in terrible conditions. Few were ever brought to any trial and most were eventually released after many years of confinement.
Bruce Kent read from the UN Declaration on Human Rights
The camp was set up in January 2002 and a total of roughly 780 men from 47 countries were brought to Guantanamo. At the start of 2025, there were still 15 held there. 9 had died while being held. Of the 780, only 8 men have ever been convicted, and 4 of these convictions have since been reversed.
Many were captured and sent there for the flimsiest of suspicions – including one man from Belgium arrested in Kuwait for wearing a Casio digital watch. Another was a taxi driver and the only journalist held there was an Al Jazeera cameraman. Most were just unlucky, often foreigners captured by bandits and sold to the US army as a handy source of income.
I wrote a short opinion on My London Diary in 2003, and captions to a few of the pictures that I posted which I’ve re-used here.
Mark Thomas was one of the speakers
“Justice is simply not happening for those imprisoned at Guatanamo Bay. What is happening is in breach of the conventions on human rights. It makes nonsense of the claims of the USA to be fighting against terrorism when they are acting in this way. Most of the Muslim world seems convinced the USA is a terrorist state because of actions like this.
It wasn’t a huge demonstration, at times there seemed to be more speakers than demonstrators. I turned down an invitation to speak, though I think it was just a case of mistaken identity … but at least this didn’t lead me to be incarcerated without trial.”
People walk out from the Boycott Workfare Surprise Party in the BHF shop
Campaigners held a brief ‘Boycott Workfare Surprise Party’ in the British Heart Foundation shop in the centre of Brixton in a protest against the charity using free forced labour by unemployed people in their shops.
Previous governments had introduced various schemes to provide work for the unemployed, particularly for young people which involved training, usually while performing socially useful tasks, such as the Youth Training Scheme. But Workfare, introduced by the coalition government in 2012 meant that those who had been out of work for some years had to work for six months without pay, often at profit-making companies, in order to keep getting their benefits.
There were a number of different workfare schemes brought in under the coalition and Tory governments including ‘Community Work Placements‘, introduced in April 2014 which forced “claimants to work for up to 30 hours a week for 26 weeks in return for Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)” but was scrapped in 2015.
Staff challenge the protesters who are putting up some Xmas decorations
The protesters came from the anti-workfare group Boycott Workfare and met in Windrush Square in Brixton, where two PCSO’s tried with little success to find out what they intended to do.
The small group then walked off down Brixton Road and went into the “British Heart Foundation shop armed with Christmas decorations, Santa hats and crackers as well as a banner and placard. Shop staff argued with them as soon as they started to party and protest.” I went in with them but was soon was told I could not photograph inside the store; I didn’t argue but left and continued to take pictures through the many glass windows to the shop.
After around 15 minutes the group left the BHF shop and posed for photographs outside before packing up and moving to protest outside Poundland, which also uses free workfare labour, abusing the unemployed. They handed out leaflets to those entering and leaving the shop and to passersby by.
The next stop was Superdrug, where a security guard came out and told the protesters they were not allowed to protest on the street outside. They laughed at him and told him he was mistaken – they had every right to protest on the highway.
He saw I was taking pictures and threatened to smash my camera. I moved back behind some of the protesters and told him he would be breaking the law if he touched me and continued taking photographs.
The protest continued, and the protesters explained why they were protesting. The security man wasn’t aware that Superdrug were using free labour of unemployed people who had no choice but to work for nothing or lose their benefits.
He calmed down and after a few minutes went back inside Superdrug. The protest continued, handing out leaflets to those walking past on the busy high street. When they began discussing which shop to go to for their next protest I decided I’d done enough and left for home.
As I commented, “Workfare is supposed to offer a way for the unemployed to get into work, but many employers are using it as a free labour supply, cutting down the number of actual jobs available by getting the work done for nothing by the unemployed… Some employers also seem to be using workfare to attack workers’ terms and conditions and attacking trade union organisation by replacing unionised workers by the unemployed.”
The Chenies, Pancras Rd, Somers Town, Camden, 1990, 90-2e-41
This 8 storey block was built in a vaguely Art Deco style in the late 1940s as council flats for St Pancras Borough Council, one of two blocks in the Godlington Street Estate. Later it passed to the London Borough of Camden. John Russell, an adviser to Henry VIII was given the title Earl of Bedford in 1551 and the Bedford family later gained other titles including that of Baron Rusell of Chenies. The Bedford estate owns much of Bloomsbury and some other parts of Camden and in the 16th century acquired Chenies Manor in Buckinghamshire by marriage.
The former premises of Pancras Tyres which had moved, though it was now impossible to see where they had moved to, I could still read 56 PEN, but there are a surprising number of streets in London beginning with Pen. The notice obscuring the rest of the address claims that (despite the move) the gates are in constant use, but they were certainly not while I was there.
St Pancras Old Church, St Pancras Old Burial Ground, Pancras Rd, Somers Town, Camden, 1990, 90-2e-43
This Grade II* listed 11-13th Century church was enlarged by A D Gough and R L Roumieu in 1847-8 and later ‘restored’ with Norman remodelling by A W Blomfield, Very little can now be seen of the original Norman building, but there are claims that there are some much older Roman remains in parts of the walls, and that this was a place of worship possibly as long ago as AD 314, A 6th century altar stone was found here.
The church remains in use as “a traditional Anglo-Catholic church that rejects the ordination of women as priests and bishops” and as a music venue.
The Hardy Tree, St Pancras Old Burial Ground, Pancras Rd, Somers Town, Camden, 1990, 90-2e-22
The railway line out of St Pancras Station runs through St Pancras Old Burial Ground and before it could be built in 1865 many of the graves their had to be dug up and moved. Some were piled up in a heap here, with the young Thomas Hardy, then an assistant to architect Arthur Blomfield, delegated to be the overseer for the work. At the centre of the pile of gravestones was an seed or small sapling, which sprouted and grew into the large ash tree whose trunk can just be seen in my picture and which became known and loved as ‘The Hardy Tree’.
Sadly the tree became infected with a fungus in 2014, severely weakening it and on 27th December 2022 it collapsed. A beech sapling was planted in 2024 to replace the original tree.
Tomb, Sir John Soane, St Pancras Old Burial Ground, Pancras Rd, Somers Town, Camden, 1990, 90-2e-26
Sir John Soane (1753 – 1837) was one of Britain’ greatest architects, the son of a bricklayer who rose to became a professor of architecture and was responsible for influential Neo-Classical buildings including the Bank of England and Dulwich Picture Gallery.
He designed this Grade I listed tomb following the death of his wife in 1815 and it was erected here in 1816. His wife, Soane and his son were all buried here. In 1924, Giles Gilbert Scott (son of Sir George Gilbert Scott architect of St Pancras Station and hotel) walked in the burial ground and was inspired by the central part of this tomb for his entry to the comptition to design a telephone box. His winning entry, the K2, produced in 1926 was the iconic telephone box – though it changed a little over the years, developing into the 1935 K6 model.
Gasholders, Goods Way and Midland Road: Continuing with pictures from my walk on Sunday 18th February 1990 – the first post on this was Between Kings Cross & St Pancras – 1990.
Gas Holders, Goods Way, Kings Cross, Camden, 1990, 90-2d-16
I photographed the gasholders here on various occasions and from various places, both in black and white and in colour. The Pancras Gasworks and those at Shoredittch were the first gas works of the Imperial Gas Light Company (later the Imperial Gas Light and Coke Co) were built in 1822 on Battlebridge Road beside the Regent’s Canal. In the 1860s it was still the largest gas works in Britain if not the world, but soon it was eclipsed by others.
Although the gas works closed in 1904 and was dismantled three years later, the gasholders continued in us for gas storage for gas from the company’s vast Beckton gasworks and were only finally decommissioned around 2000 well after town gas had been replaced by natural gas.
These three gasholders were originally built in 1879, replacing an earlier triplet from the 1860s designed by engineer John Clark. He had them built as ‘telescopic’ holders with two interlocking sections or ‘lifts’ around the outside of the ‘bell’ which could rise up inside the guide frames to increase the capacity.
As the Grade II listing text states this involved “replacing the guide frames in their entirety by the contractors Westwood and Wright under the direction of John Clark. The columns of the new guide frames observed classical rules so that the lowest tier was in the Tuscan order, the middle in the Doric and the topmost in a simplified version of Corinthian.”
These small industrial workshops were also demolished in the redevelopment of the area for the building of St Pancras International.
Water Point, St Pancras Station, Goods Way, Somers Town, Camden, 1990, 90-2e-01
This Grade II listed water point is close to the new location of the gasholder frames and also the redeveloped coal drops on the north side of the canal. Built around 1870 for the Midland Railway it was probably designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott’s architects office.
Like the gasholders its original location was in the way of St Pancras International and was moved around 2001 to its new location on Camley St, some 700 yards to the north. When built it was condemned by some architectural critics for being an inappropriate use of Gothic for a functional building, but it well matched the station and hotel.
Together with the Granary building and others in the area according to Historic England it forms “an evocative ensemble of former industrial buildings of considerable urban landscape value.” Having a theme park like this is certainly better than losing these structures completely but it isn’t any real replacement for the original.
US Climate Wrecking, Mumia & Stop The War: Friday 9th December 2011 I went to Grosvenor Square for a protest against the US blocking any progress on reducing world carbon emissions and also photographed a protest calling for the release of Mumia Abu-Jamal, “the world’s most famous death-row inmate” on the 30th anniversary of his alleged crime. From there went to Housemans bookshop for a crowded launch party of a book on 10 years of Stop The War campaigning.
USA Climate Treaty Wrecker
US Embassy, Grosvenor Square
The Koch Brothers finance climate denial – a giant banner in front of US Embassy
COP 17, the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, was due to end on 11th December by the USA was blocking any progress on adopting the worlds’ only emissions reductions treaty, the Kyoto protocol.
Phil Thornhill dressed in Uncle Sam coat and trousers speaking at US Embassy
The USA was leading a small group of countries – also including Canada and Japan – in preventing global agreement. The protesters blamed the US policy on the lobbying by US industries, and in particular the Koch Brothers, climate change deniers whose huge fortunes come from fossil fuels and were the major funders behind the extreme right Tea Party movement in the Republican Party. No longer active as it shifted the party to the extreme right positions it now holds
Uncle Sam the Grim Reaper and the Koch Brothers banner
The Durban talks overran by 36 hours and failed to agree on a global plan, instead pushing the debate in the future, agreeing to establish a legally binding agreement by 2015 which would come into force by 2020. But further opposition again led by the US at all later COPs have prevented that happening.
The protesters from the Camapaign Against Climate Change held up a giant 8 metre by 4 meter banner with some difficulty in front of the embassy ‘condemning the Koch brothers and their “dirty money” for preventing progress in tackling climate change. Continued opposition to any effective action by the US seems likely to result in much of the world becoming uninhabitable by the end of this century, with billions mainly in the world’s poorer countries dying.’
People marched from Oxford Circus to protest at the US Embassy
A second group of protesters marched to the US Embassy on the 30th anniversary of the killing of police officer Daniel Faulkner after the officer had stopped Mumia Abu-Jamal’s younger brother at 4am in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mumia was alleged to have run across from his parked taxi to intervene. He was wounded by a shot from Faulkner and a revolver registered to Mumia which had fired five shots was found at the scene.
Mumia, a journalist and former Black Panther, was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1982, but supporters claim that the crime was not properly investigated. They aalso say he did not get a fair trial, with a predominantly white jury, ineffective legal support and incorrect direction to the jury by a racist judge. Another man is alleged to have admitted to the shooting.
In jail during various legal appeals, Mumia wrote the book ‘Live From Death Row‘ (1995) in which he described his life in jail and the corrupt racist nature of the US Justice system. Eventually a federal appeals court decided that a new sentencing hearing was needed as the instructions the jury were given were potentially misleading. But the US Supreme Court in October 2011 not to consider the case but his sentence was reduced to life imprisonment.
At the protest there were several speeches giving details of his case and a lengthy statement about the life imprisonment decision was read. But like many of his supporters around the world those at the protest felt that sentence was unacceptable as they held that “Mumia was innocent of the crime and in prison because of his race and his revolutionary views, held by a racist system.”
I was pleased to have a few of my pictures included in ‘Stop The War – A Graphic History‘ published to mark 10 years of campaigning.
Kate Hudson, David Gentleman and Andrew Burgin
The book includes images by well-known graphics artists including Banksy and Ralph Steadman. I was particularly pleased to meet David Gentleman, whose graphic posters have inspired the movement – and of course feature in many of my pictures.
Jeremy Corbyn, MP talks to David Gentleman who designed the Stop The War placards
There are also pictures from a couple of dozen photographers, though most of the photos come from half a dozen of us. For me of course that seemed in many ways the most important section of the book as a historical record.
Many artists and photographers were present at the opening as well as leading figures in the campaign, including Tony Benn who contributed the foreword to the book.
Global Climate Change March: On Saturday 8th December 2007 around 6,000 people came to march through London in an attempt to shake the government out of its complacency and get the real change in direction needed to avoid catastrophe. It was by then totally clear that our world was heading to disaster.
A mermaid at the front of the march points out the danger of rising sea levels
Eighteen years later we are still on course for human extinction, and for taking many other species with us. Although most governments have by now taken some measures to curb emissions together these have only resulted in a slight reduction of our rate of self-destruction. Tinkering at the margins is not going to save us and there will be no magic scientific solution, we need a dramatic system change.
Cyclists arrive to support picket at a Tesco Metro
The main driver of our impending disaster can be stated in one word: GROWTH. The incessant demand for more, more, more – when what we really should be valuing is better.
The cyclists rode around central London in the rain
We have a government that is committed to growth – and introducing climate killing policies such as Heathrow expansion. Protests such this in 2007 and many others managed to stop the third runway then but now it and other disastrous projects are back.
People come to Parliament Square to start the march to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square
Of course it isn’t just our current government, but the whole political and economic system which calls for growth – and is dominated by the rich and powerful people and corporations who control the laws, the media and more. They aren’t our laws and our media but their laws and their media – and they lead to the obscenity of billionaires and to poverty in rich countries and across the world.
Polar bears support Friends of the Earth’s ‘The Big Ask’.
Below is my fairly lengthy account of the march in 2007 from My London Diary, where there are many more pictures of the event than the few here.
‘Can’t you stop climate change’
Global Climate Change March – Parliament – Grosvenor Square
The global climate change march on Saturday 8 December was intended to send a message to government that they need to produce an effective Climate Change bill and put themselves wholeheartedly behind saving the planet rather than backing projects such as the Heathrow expansion that will further increase the chaos.
The march went to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, because America is still refusing to ratify the Kyoto treaty and still sabotaging any progress on getting effective measures to cut carbon and energy use.
Cyclists were also out in force on a tour of central London before the march, visiting a picket at Tesco Metro in Lower Regent Street, where leaflets were handed to customers asking them to shop elsewhere so long as Tesco continues to promote bio-fuels.
It was a lousy day, with strong winds and intermittent heavy showers, but that didn’t stop more than 6000 marchers turning out for the event, many in fancy dress as santas, polar bears, reindeer, elves, penguins and more to highlight the problem of melting polar icecaps. At the front of the march was the ‘Statue of Taking Liberties’ with the Kyoto treaty, followed by the Earth in its greenhouse as in the Campaign against Climate Change logo. And Lucy, our favourite mermaid was there to remind us of the perils of rising sea levels.
It was hardly surprising to see such a great number of protesters and placards opposed to the expansion of Heathrow and the building of a third runway across the villages of Sipson and Harmondsworth. There also appeared to be an increasing realisation that to combat climate chaos we need to put into place changes in lifestyle and politics, with some protesters calling for an end to livestock farming – one of the main contributors to carbon emissions – and others for a revolution.
I tried hard to represent all the different groups on the march, but doubtless I will have missed some. One of the santas carried two placards, the more appropriate of which said “Santa says stop Global Warming. Its getting too wet and windy for Rudolph“; it was certainly too wet and windy for marchers and photographers, but we stuck it out
Photographers Christmas Walk: Six years ago on Thursday 7th December I celebrated the Christmas season with a walk around the City of London with four other photographers, old friends I had known – and occasionally worked with – for over 20 years.
We began at the lowest level of the Guildhall Art Gallery where there are the ruins of London’s Roman Coliseum under the glass area of floor
It was something we have been doing every year for quite a few years, though in the 1990s there used to be a dozen or so of us. I’ll be making another similar outing this year, though its a rather sobering thought that of the five of us who were there in 2017, two have since died. This year there will be only be three of us.
Walking across Guildhall Yard. The much-missed John Benton-Harris (centre) always complained about the pictures I took of him
Not all of the others in the original group have died – some have moved away, and one or two others – as in 2017 – are too busy to come at this time of year. But it’s a time when we will remember them all – and lift a glass to the memory of the dead as well as celebrating we are still here.
A well-known gateway in Throgmorton Street
I’ll leave you to read what I wrote about the walk on My London Diary in 2017, but I think the pictures I took as we walked around show some interesting parts of London, and I’ll say a little here about one of the places we visited.
Walking around the City gave us a thirst – and we went into the Crosse Keys in the grand building of the former Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank on Gracechurch Street. Wetherspoons may be owned by a man whose politics I loathe, but I have to admire the way they have found a new life for buildings such as this. And the building is a grand one, even though it is a reminder of the hey-day of Empire, funded by exploitation of the people and resources of an age when Britain ruled the world – and did so extremely bloodily.
This Grade II listed banking hall was designed by William Campbell Jones (1862-1951) and built in 1912-13 – you can read much more about the building here.
Now the building is a pub with an unusually wide and changing range of real ales – and whatever their faults, all Wetherspoons keep their beers well and the prices are – by London standards – keen. Though as you can read I wasn’t entirely won over by ‘Smokestack Lightning’.
I get in the picture at last
It took some dragging for me to get the group of four of us (one had sulked and gone away as we entered the pub) out while there was still enough light to take pictures, and I led them down to the river.
We walked back to the bus stop at St Paul’s Churchyard across a small remaining part of the City’s highwalks, part of a post-war scheme to separate pedestrians and traffic, doomed from its inception by the nature of the City. I had photographed them extensively in many panoramas in the 1990s. I think we then ate and had a few more drinks at a pub in Holborn.
Grenfell – 2017 & Hong Kong: On Wednesday 6th December 2017 I photographed two protests outside Kensington Town Hall in both of which people demanded answers from Kensington & Chelsea council about the terrible fire at Grenfell Tower almost six months earlier.
A woman in the crowd listens to speeches at the Justice4Grenfell protest
The protest had been approved earlier at a public meeting and was supported by the Justice4Grenfell campaign and the Revolutionary Communist Group who both came with PA systems.
J4G refused to let the RCG speak at their protest and tried to persuade them to move away, but they refused.
Emma Dent-Coad MP
But they did pause their protest and turn off their sound system for the J4G’s main speakers, MPs Kate Osamor and Emma Dent-Coad.
After that the RCG resumed their protes as J4G appeared to have stopped – but soon they also began again and there were two protests taking place a few yards apart. A small group from J4G came to shout angrily at the RCG, and there were threats of physical violence with one man having to be held back by his friends after he tried to start a fist fight.
Also protesting with the RCG were some from Class War, who stood with posters of disgraced Councillor Rock Feilding-Mellen, who as deputy council leader and cabinet member responsible for housing and for the flammable cladding and other cuts which had created a disaster waiting to happen. Since the fire he had fled the area and hidden away – and under the large image of his face was the single word ‘WHERE?’
I tried hard to photograph both protests, moving between the two groups.
Both shared the same aims, both condemning the failures by the council which had led to a small fire turning rapidly into a major disaster and, after the fire its failure to respond adequately and in a timely way to the needs of the survivors, both calling for criminal charges against those responsible in Kensington and Chelsea council, the TMO and the cladding company and others.
Both calling for a real role for the local community in the official inquiry into the fire which they feel has already disrespected local residents and fear will be a cover up.
Now eight years later the inquiry has told us very little that was not already covered in the report by Architects for Social Housing published 5 weeks after the fire and there have still not been any criminal charges made against those responsible.
Moyra Samuels
There have been some related cases, with people being prosecuted who have fraudulently tried to profit from the disaster – which were discussed in a blog post by Steve Tombs of the OU, The Poor Get Prison… Grenfell as a Site of Crime?, but none for those directly responsible for the tragedy.
Kate Osamor MP
Many will have noticed the enormous contrast between this and the recent fire at the Wang Fuk Court complex in Hong Kong where Reuters report at least 156 people died in a fire rapidly spread by substandard plastic mesh and insulation foam.
The first reports in the UK media over the fire also included that police had already arrested a number of people in connection with the fire. Reuters reported 15 on suspicion of manslaughter as well as another 12 arrests in a corruption investigation.
Bloody Murder at Ripper ‘Museum‘: Another of the series of protests by Class War at the so-called museum glorifying the gory murders of working-class women took place on Saturday 5th December 2015.
A police officer smiles while another looks fixedly away as Jane Nichol displays the bloody head
I photographed most if not all of the protests they organised in a campaign they kept up for some years, showing their disgust at this fake museum, which the owner, Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe got planning consent to open claiming it was to celebrate the powerful history of the women of London’s East end, not their bloody dismemberment by a homicidal maniac.
Jane Nicholl waves her grandson’s plastic cutlass (or scimitar?) at the Ripper ‘museum’
Class War were always interesting to photograph – and always fun to be with, as well as supporting important campaigns, particularly those around housing problems, bringing both a clear and informed anarchist perspective and a great deal of street theatre.
The Lucy Parsons banner. The Ripper attacks were by an upper class man on working working-class women
And their publications including the Class War magazine were always a good read, with often penetrating analysis as well as some distinctly black humour, truly black and red and read. You can see many earlier editions online at The Sparrow’s Nest.
Ian Bone’s autobiography, Bash the Rich: True Life Confessions of an Anarchist in the UK is certainly an interesting read and the 1991 Class War: A Decade of Disorder he edited comes with the ‘Publishers’ Warning! This book contains explicit language and illustration which may offend yuppies, police officers, members of the royal family and people who think the world can be changed by holding hands and singing “We shall overcome.” ‘
As I wrote back in 2015, “Class War re-enacted a murder outside the Jack the Ripper tourist attraction, women hacking and decapitating a dummy wearing the mask of owner Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe with a plastic scimitar and liberally spattering fake blood as others played kazoos“
More fake blood is scattered on the Palmer-Edgecumbe ‘guy’ – and on my trousers as I took the picture – it washed out easily
Class War is more of a loose association of like-minded people than an organisation and its actions often gain support from many others, including on this occasion and others fourth-wave feminists.
After Jane others took their turn in attacking the dummy which proved remarkably resistant to the plastic scimitar, but finally Jane could triumphantly display the bloody severed head of Palmer-Edgecumbe,
and others came to kick its body.
Women showed their bloody hands,
and Ian Bone came carrying the rolled-up banner and his walking stick to inspect the corpse.
Police wanted Class Wat to remove the Palmer-Edgecumbe ‘guy’ but they declined, saying they were donating it to the museum as one of the few genuine exhibits for their display. Police followed Class War as they walked away to the pub, and it seemed for a moment they might make and arrest – perhaps for littering – but they thought better of it and walked back to guard the shop. They were still there when I left the pub around an hour later.
Ten years later the tacky tourist attraction remains open, though my conclusion to this protest had hoped for a different conclusion:
“Thanks at least in part to Class War’s publicity and vigorous protests over around five months others have taken up the fight against the so-called museum, and the fight to get a real museum celebrating the powerful history of the women of London’s East End. It’s a rich heritage with powerful and colourful figures in which the bloody murders by the Ripper are only an insignificant and entirely negative episode. Perhaps it’s now time for others to take up a long-term if probably lower-key campaign here and continue it until this bloody blot on our heritage is closed down.“
More of my thoughts about the ‘museum’ and about the protest – with many more pictures – on My London Diary at Bloody Murder at Ripper ‘museum’.
Gate Gourmet & a Bike Ride: On Sunday December 4th 2005 I got on my bike and rode the roughly 1l miles to Southall, where I locked up my bike (not the Brompton, but an old CinellI racer I’d got many years ago for my 13th birthday) and photographed a protest by workers sacked from their jobs at Heathrow airport catering firm Gate Gourmet.
There is an excellent article on the Striking Women website which gives the background to the dispute and explains why 56 women workers of South Asian origin felt betrayed by the agreement reached by the TGWU over the dispute and refused the compensation offered of between £5000 and £8000 – and refused to leave quietly – though most of the workers took the money rather than fight for justice.
The workers and their shop stewards received little support from the official trade union movement in their fight for justice and the TGWU hardship fund ended its support in January 2006, and the TGWU (by then part of UNITE) cease all support in 2009. Around a dozen of the workers – mainly those who were for various reasons not at work when Gate Gourmet locked the workers out – eventually won claims for unfair dismissal.
The dispute made very clear the extent to which union powers had been emasculated by a succession of Acts passed under Thatcher – the Employment Act 1980, Employment Act 1982, Trade Union Act 1984, Trade Union Art 1990, Employment Act 1988, Employment Act 1990. John Major continued with the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993 and then Blair and New Labour took over the job.
But even given all this, the TGWU ended up caving in to the employers and giving them everything they wanted in the settlement it made.
Below (with minor corrections) is the post I wrote back in 2005.
Gate Gourmet – the Struggle Continues
Southall, December 4, 2005
Gate Gourmet was split off from British Airways in 1997 to cut costs by out-sourcing their catering. It was sold to US company Texas Pacific in 2002, and they also decided to cut costs. This seems to have meant increasing workload, bringing in more managers (why?) and replacing skilled and experienced staff by unskilled workers. They went into a dispute with the TGWU (Heathrow’s major union) over layoffs and worsening conditions, then on 10 August 2005, took on 120 temporary workers.
Their aim was to provoke an unofficial walkout, which would allow them to sack the workers. The workers held a union meeting in the canteen and were told by management that if they were not back at work in 3 minutes they were all sacked. It is claimed that management had locked the doors just to make sure they didn’t return. The workers were then forcibly evicted from the premises by the private security guards the management just happened to have standing around waiting.
Britain’s anti-union laws (thanks to Mrs Thatcher) stack the odds against workers, allowing unscrupulous management to get away with most things short of murder if they put their minds to it.
The TGWU were hamstrung by a High Court injunction, which prevented them from doing much to help the workers. The only thing that helped them was illegal action by their former colleagues at BA, said to have cost that company £40 million. So eventually BA forced Gate Gourmet to come to some kind of compromise with the TGWU, but this has failed to satisfy most of the workers, who wanted their jobs back and decent working conditions. So, although all the papers reported it as over, the action still continues. When my wife flew BA from Heathrow a few days ago, she got a voucher to get sandwiches in the departure lounge rather than in-flight catering.
This is a dispute that highlights the need for proper trade union laws that give workers and unions a fair deal. It shows how union weakness has allowed the Labour Party to renege on the promises it made in opposition and to turn its back on its traditions of fair play. BA has also emerged as pretty short-sighted in its decision to out-source its catering, much as we have found out-sourcing to be a mistake over key services in hospitals and schools.
After the protest I was relieved to find my bike still in one piece where I had locked it and rode home. On my way to Southall I had time to spare and stopped to take a few pictures -and just a few more on my way home. Here is what I wrote in 2005.
I took my usual route to Southall on a push-bike – it takes me around 45 minutes if I don’t stop. but I nearly always do stop at least once to take some pictures. So here are a few pictures from around Heathrow, including a farm. Heathrow swallowed up some of the most productive arable land in the country including a number of fine orchards, but there are still a few farmed areas around its edges – cutting down the dangers of a crash, although some of the most used approaches come in low over many homes.
It was never a suitable site for a major airport, but the chances of any government biting the bullet and closing it down seem low. We should have been running it down for years, but instead have built 2 new terminals (both of which the airport authority said they would never need) and further disastrous development looks likely.
