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Outsourcing, North Woolwich & Rees-Mogg Freakshow – 2019

Outsourcing, North Woolwich & Rees-Mogg Freakshow: Tuesday 26th February 2019 was a long day for me, beginning with a day of action over the outsourcing of workers on the day of a High Court challenge to extend the legal rights of the 3.3 million outsourced workers. In the afternoon I went to complete a walk I’d begun several months earlier in North Woolwich, returning to cover a protest by Class War outside a performance by Jacob Rees-Mogg at the London Palladium.

Rally for an end to Outsourcing – Parliament Square

Outsourcing, North Woolwich & Rees-Mogg Freakshow - 2019

The day of action by outsourced workers had actually begun several hours earlier at 8.00am at the University of London from where they had marched to protest outside the High Court before I met them for a rally against outsourcing in Parliament Square.

The day was a part of a coordinated strike action by outsourced workers, mainly migrants, working at the Ministry of Justice, Dept for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and the University of London, organised by the grass roots unions United Voices of the World (UVW), the Independent Workers’ union of Great Britain (IWGB) with the BEIS PCS branch .

The unions argued that outsourced workers should be able to collectively bargain with the management of their actual workplace as well as the outsourced employer and that not being allowed to do so was in breach of article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. You can read more about the case which the High Court dismissed in an insightful article by Tom Long for Personnel Today.

Had the legal challenge been successful it would have greatly extended the legal rights of the UK’s 3.3 million outsourced workers and have led to a great improvement in their working lives.

Several Labour MPs came to speak at the rally and support the demand to end outsourcing which creates insecurity, discrimination and low pay.

Rally for an end to Outsourcing

Outsourced Workers protest at BEIS

After the rally the the protesters marched around Parliament Square and then along Victoria Street to protest outside the Dept for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

Strikers at BEIS included catering and security staff who are members of the PCS and are demanding the London Living Wage as well as end to outsourcing.

Among the speakers at the rally here was then Labour MP for Derby North Chris Williamson who was under investigation for his comments about the party’s response to allegations of antisemitism in the party – and was eventually barred from standing for Labour in the 2019 election.

Outsourced Workers protest at BEIS

Outsourced Workers at Justice ministry

The protesters marched on to the Justice Ministry in Petty France.

Low paid workers belonging to the United Voices of the World union at the Ministry of Justice have been campaigning for some time to get the London Living wage, but the Justice Minister has been unwilling to talk with them. They call it the Ministry of Injustice.

They are also calling for an end to outsourcing and the insecurity, discrimination and low pay it causes. A number of trade unionists came to speak in support of outlawing outsourcing and to support the strikers in their claims.

This was a loud and boisterous protest with drumming, music and dancing on the pavement and street outside the ministry.

During the protest some of those who had already been on strike for 24 hours went back into the ministry to resume work, to cheers and hugs from those outside.

Outsourced Workers at Justice ministry

North Woolwich Walk

My attempt to go for a walk along the Capital Ring in North Woolwich was made difficult by the DLR having a temporary shut-down and I arrived an hour later than intended and was unable to finish the walk – I came back several months later to do so.

It wasn’t ideal weather particularly for the panoramas I was trying to make with a clear blue sky. And finally I failed to put all the pictures I had intended onto the web page – including these two

North Woolwich

Class War protest Rees-Mogg freak show – London Palladium

Class War protest outside the London Palladium as fans who had paid £38 for a ticket entered to listen to Jacob Rees-Mogg.

With Jane Nicholl dressed as a nun, Mother Hysteria, and Adam Clifford as Jacob Rees Mogg they loudly asked why people had come to listen to him “spout homophobic, transphobic, racist, pro-hunting, misogynist, classist, privileged” nonsense.

It was certainly a better show than anything that would take place later inside the venue, and all for free. You can read an excellent account of it on Inside Croydon.

Later Police searched Jane Nicholl and threatened to arrest her for carrying offensive weapons after it emerged she had brought some novelty stink bombs to the protest.
Class War protest Rees-Mogg freak show

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On the IWGB ‘3 Cosas’ Battle Bus – 2014

On the IWGB ‘3 Cosas’ Battle Bus: On Tuesday 18th January 2014 I got up uncharacteristically early and joined a packed rush hour train into London, something I usually like to avoid. The bus to Russell Square was also slow, held up in busy traffic, but even so I joined the morning picket at the east gate to the entrance to the Senate House car park before 9am and was taking pictures.

It was a bright winter morning, but not much above freezing and not the kind of day anyone sensible would go on an open-top bus ride around London, and though I’d layered up well for the event it was still chilling.

But those on the picket line on the second day of the 3 day strike by the IWGB for union recognition and better conditions had already been there since 5am, beginning while I was still sleeping in a warm bed and were still in good spirits. Cleaners, maintenance and security staff who work in the University of London were joined by student leaders and students from the University. Of course many of the workers would normally have been at work in the early hours.

Although these workers work at the university and carry out work essential for the running of the university, the university does not employ them. Most low paid workers – cleaners, maintenance and security staff, catering workers and others – at the University of London are no longer directly employed by the University, but work in the University on contracts from contractors.

Outsourcing these workers enables the University to evade its responsibilities towards this essential part of their workforce who suffer from poorer conditions and pay and aggressive management from the contractors that any responsible employer would be ashamed to implement. Most were only getting the legal minimum in terms of pay, pensions, sick pay and holidays, well inferior to comparable fellow workers directly employed by the University.

In the past these precarious employees had belonged, if at all, to traditional unions such as Unison, who had taken their fees but done nothing to improve their conditions, often seeming to them to only be concerned in keeping the differential between those on the lowest pay and higher paid staff.

It was only when these workers, many of them Spanish-speaking, joined the newly formed grass roots union, the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain, that they were able to achieve some gains thanks to noisy public protests and strong negotiating by the union which by 2013 had won them the London Living Wage, considerably more than the national minimum wage. They achieved this despite both the University of London and the employers refusing to recognise the IWGB, continuing to recognise the more compliant Unison to which few if any of these workers belonged.

In 2013, having won the London Living Wage and started the now famous 3 Cosas or “three things” campaign for sick pay, holiday pay and pensions, as well as continuing to press for union recognition.

This 3-day strike, following another strike the previous November, was the latest action in this campaign. Union recognition was particularly important for those working at the Garden Halls of residence in Bloomsbury which the university was intending to close in the coming Summer. The IWGB was demanding these workers be given priority for vacancies that arise elsewhere in the university, with preference being given to those with the longer periods of service, but the employers were refusing any cooperation.

Waiting for us in the driveway was an open-top bus, and after I had been there around an hour most of the strikers and supporters boarded this ‘battle bus’ to go on a protest tour of various sites in London, with just a small picket remaining. I had been invited to go with them on top of the bus to take photographs.

“The sun shone on the workers as the bus drove away, followed by a group of student supporters on bicycles. I was on the upper deck taking photographs as the workers waved their red IWGB flags, chanted and listened to IWGB Branch Secretary Jason Moyer-Lee, Branch Chair Henry Lopez, President of the Independent Workers of Great Britain Alberto Durango, Branch Vice-Chair and leading member of the 3 Cosas Campaign Sonia Chura and University of London Union Vice-President Daniel Cooper as they used a powerful public address system to address the public and workers about the fight for union recognition for the IWGB and comparable conditions of service with directly employed University of London workers for outsourced workers at the university.

In between the various speeches and chants, including some in both Spanish and translated into English, there was loud music to draw attention and also to keep the strikers happy.”

The first stop was in Cartwright Gardens outside the University’s Garden Halls of residence where there were several speeches from the top of the bus. Somehow we went on to drive past the Unison headquarters on Euston Road in both directions, to booing from many of the workers, and on the second pass an IWGB flag was caught in the branches of a tree and left flying in front of the Unison building.

The route had been planned to stop outside the offices of The Guardian, but it, like most London buses, was running late due to traffic congestion, and it continued on to go very noisily through Trafalgar Square and down Whitehall, before a complete circuit of Parliament Square before stopping to let us get off outside the Supreme Court.

There was then a rally on the pavement in front of Parliament, with short speeches by Labour MPs John McDonnell, Andy Burnham and Jeremy Corbyn who had come out to join us.

We marched to the Embankment and boarded the bus again for a short journey, leaving the bus just around the corner from the Royal Opera House, where everyone kept quiet as we approached the building and then rushed in. The IWGB had been campaigning there for some time for the London Living Wage.

This is another workplace where the management had refused to recognise and have talks with the IWGB, preferring to recognise Unison. The IWGB were confronted there by the Unison Health & Safety rep who told them the management had now agreed to pay cleaners the Living Wage but hadn’t yet told them. Doubtless this was another victory for the protests by the IWGB, though of course he refused to acknowledge this.

We piled back onto the bus and went to the offices of the new employer of the outsourced workers, Cofely GDF-Suez, who had taken over from Balfour Beatty Workplace in December. Police were there and the front and back gates were both locked. The workers held a brief rally outside the gate in Torrens Place.

I was invited to go back on the bus to a late lunch with the workers at the Elephant & Castle – but it was already after 2pm and I didn’t relish the thought of another long bus ride. So I said goodbye and began my journey home to work on and file some of the many pictures I had taken over the day.

You can read more about this in posts on My London Diary, where there are also many more pictures.
‘3 Cosas’ Strike Picket
‘3 Cosas’ Strike Picket and Battle Bus
IWGB at Parliament
IWGB in Royal Opera House
IWGB at Cofely GDF-Suez

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IWGB Protests to the Princess – 2017

IWGB Protests to the Princess: The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain and supporters protested outside Senate House while University of London Chancellor Princess Anne was visiting on Foundation Day. They called for all workers in the university to be directly employed by the university and IWGB members in the security staff had held one of a series of one-day strikes.

Although many of those who were attending the event with the princess had to walk in past a noisy protest, she was brought in by another entrance, and although they marched around when they heard this was happening they missed seeing her. But she will certainly have heard the protest.

The protest was one in a long series by outsourced low paid staff at the University to gain the same conditions of employment as directly employed staff in what was known as the ‘tres cosas campaign’ – sick pay, pensions, holidays. They wanted to end the University outsourcing their jobs in the University to private companies who employ staff on far worse conditions and pay than those they employ directly.

The protesters say the use of outside contractors to employ staff is discriminatory as outsourced workers including security, cleaning and catering staff are predominantly migrant and BME workers and it results in them being on far worse terms and conditions than other staff and also subjected to harassment and bullying.

A fairly large crowd had come for the protest to support the out-sourced workers. Among them were students from the University of London, including students from the LSE who were campaigning for their cleaners to be properly treated and brought in house. They also included members of other trade unions including the UCU London Region, strikers from the Picturehouse cinemas and McStrike fast food workers demanding a living wage.

There were also speakers from other IWGB sector branches and Sandy Nicholl from SOAS Unison who has led a ten year fight there against out-sourcing. A samba band made sure the protest was heard both outside and inside the building so the princess will have been very aware of what was happening.

In 2020 the IWGB web site recorded that “After almost 10-years of fighting with the IWGB to be brought in-house, cleaners, porters, and security guards at University of London won their ‘tres cosas’ campaign in a historic victory. Workers fought tirelessly to achieve their demands, which were aided by the Senate House Boycott movement and the support of many students and staff across University of London.” I’m pleased to have been able in my small way to have helped the union to achieve this result.

But the IWGB went on to state “Although the University of London still refuses to recognise us, we continue to be the majority union at the university, representing all workers – from cleaners to professional services staff.” Under current unfair employment law employers can continue to recognise the larger and less effective trade unions rather than those who the workers chose as they are more effective in getting results such as the IWGB.

More text and pictures about the evening’s protest at IWGB protest London Uni outsourcing.

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3 Years of BEIS poverty pay

The PCS has many low-paid members working in government departments, including the BEIS, or to give it the full and perhaps deliberately unwieldy name, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It was created by Theresa May on 14 July 2016 when she amalgamated the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) probably in part as a way of downplaying the government response to climate change. It appears to have become something of a parking place for some of the least able of our politicians, and at the time of its third birthday the minister in charge was Greg Clark, then Member of Parliament for Tunbridge Wells, since replaced by Andrea Leadsom.

Clark’s picture appears on some of the placards and on the birthday cake which had rather more then 3 candles on it as the picture at the top of the page shows and which many of us present had a piece at the end of the protest.

This was the start of the first ever indefinite strike at a government ministry, with cleaners and catering workers coming out on strike to demand the London Living Wage and to be directly employed by the BEIS rather than outsourcing companies ISS and Aramark.

Given this it was perhaps hardly surprising that there were an unusual number of Labour party and trade union speakers at the event, with the PCS president, general secretary and national vice-president joined by the general secretaries of two other unions, a Labour MP and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell as well as several other leading trade unionists, all of whom appear in my pictures on My London Diary.

But the stars of the show were the workers. I was standing in the right place to capture the picture with all the candles on the cake lit, but most of the press photographers were to one side, and some of them decided to get the workers to turn around towards them. Unfortunately while they moved, the wind blew out all the candles before they could be blown out. So the image apparently showing the candles being blown out is a little piece of fake news staged for the press – as my caption for it made clear, as does the absence of any smoke from the candles that had been extinguished some seconds earlier, allowing it to clear.

More at BEIS workers begin indefinite strike.

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