‘Life NOT Money at the LSE’ protesters chalked on the roadway and lay down, blocking the street
LSE Cleaners Strike For Equality And Dignity: The protest by cleaners at the LSE on Thursday 11th May 2017 was just one more in a long series of weekly one-day strikes demanding parity of terms and conditions with other staff there who were directly employed by the LSE.
The cleaning was outsourced to cleaning contractor Noonan, who employed cleaners under considerably inferior terms – pay, holidays, pensions etc – compared to those workers employed on the site by the LSE. I had been at the meeting in September 2016 when with their union, the United Voices of the World, they began their campaign for parity of treatment and had also photographed their protests.
The UVW were eventually successful after a series of strikes featuring “flashmobs, salsa, zumba, poetry, art sessions, teach-outs” and “after 10 months of struggle, and the then largest cleaners strike in UK history and the highest number of strike days of any group of outsourced workers in UK higher education – outsourcing was ended and all cleaners were brought in-house as LSE employees! Their fight against institutional racism was the first “to force a British university to end the practice of outsourcing cleaners!“
My post told the story of the event in picture and captions which describe the harassment by police and others of some of the supporters, particularly those from Class War. Here is a brief edited version.
Noonan employs the cleaners at the LSE and the cleaners get low pay, low status and terrible managementThey work in the same place and deserve equal treatment. Their claims are supported by students and LSE staff. Trenton Oldfield brought his daughter with him to show solidarity with the cleaners.LSE Security have closed the area in front of the library normally open to the public. The road is a public highwayOne police officer starts harassing Sid Skill of Class War who has come to show solidarity. Sid refuses to talk to him and moves away – and eventually fled fearing arrest followed by two police officers, escaping them by jumping on a bus as the doors closedA woman who works in the LSE comes to tell the cleaners they are making a lot of noise and disturbing her day and then hugs the police officer and smiles when she sees I am photographing her. The cleaners say they have to make a lot of noise as the LSE management refuse to talk with them and their union.Cleaners make a noise – they want management to talk to them and to recognise their union. They also want to be treated with dignity and respect at work, a living wage and equal pensions, sick pay and other benefits.A man comes to complain to Class War about their support for the cleaners. He says that they don’t have any right to be there. Jane Nicholl puts him right. He seems to have no idea what class war is and no understanding of class solidarity. And as I suspect Jane put it is a stupid prick. Though she may have been less kind.The protesters march around the campus to visit a couple of other sites from brief protests in Lincolns Inn Fields and then Sardinia St before going to the Student Union, where there were speeches an poetry from Grim Chip of Poetry on the Picket Line.Meanwhile Life Not Money at the LSE had been at work, painting their message in chalk on the road and then sitting down on the Portugal St in front of Old Building, stopping lorries entering or leaving the LSE building site.
You can read the full version with more pictures and text at LSE Cleaners strike.
Cleaners get out Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain flags at Canary Wharf station
Cleaners at Clifford Chance: Clifford Chance is now the third largest UK based law firm and one of the five members of the “Magic Circle” of leading London-based multinational law firms. Trainees there apparently now start on £56,000 and after qualification are on £150,000 a year, though hours are long. But as with many other leading businesses the cleaners there were not employed directly and the cleaning was outsourced to MITIE.
And march to Clifford Chance’s office tower
The cleaners complained of bullying, race, sex and disability discrimination and victimisation of trade unionists by cleaning contractor MITIE. Their trade union, the IWGB had been trying to get a meeting with MITIE for a month to discuss the dispute at Clifford Chance without success, so they decided to go there and protest.
Some manage to enter and protest in the foyer
The offices are in a tall block on the Canary Wharf estate, a private estate with its own security force, and protests were definitely not allowed there. Nor for that matter is photography, though many tourists are there taking pictures. And although I’ve taken photography students and workshops there in the past without problems (sticking to a strict no tripods rule) I have twice been stopped by security – and once actually escorted off the estate. So both I and the IWGB were a little worried about the reception we might get.
But leave when they are asked to do so
On Friday May 3rd 2013 I travelled with around 30 protesters to Canary Wharf station on the Jubilee Line for a surprise protest, and at the station after a short briefing they quickly got out their union flags and a couple of placards and marched rapidly to the nearby Clifford Chance offices.
Canada Wharf Security Officers dressed as police soon arrive
There some managed to get through the doors before the building security managed to stop them and I went with them. They were careful to cause no damage and after a few minutes when they were politely requested to leave did so, continuing the protest on the pavement outside.
Canary Wharf Estate security men soon arrived, in uniforms which seemed to me to be impersonating police officers (an offence under the Police Act 1996) and were soon followed by the Head of Security. He tried to speak to the protesters telling them they had to leave.
Petros Elia of IWGB and the Head of SecuritySecurity officers try to move Alberto Durango
There were arguments and a few minor incidents, particularly after the security officers began to push the protesters who told them that this was an assault, and particularly when one officer hit a woman and some tried to grab the cleaners’ leader Alberto Durango.
But after this things quietened down. The protesters assured the Head of Security they would leave shortly.
There was a short period of noisy protest and then a speech in which Alberto made clear they were protesting because MITIE were treating the cleaners with disrespect and their only response to the many and lengthy complaints made by the union had been to banning union representatives and victimising union activists.
We then made our way back to the station. Despite my fears I had at no point been asked to stop taking photographs, and you can see many more of them on My London Diary.
Climate Rush & Cleaners: On Thursday March 5th 2009 Climate Rush and friends staged a colourful protest against the huge support being given to the banks while the people were having to pay the price for their irresponsible and dishonest behaviour which had precipitated the financial crisis. I left their protest to photograph cleaners who were protesting at Willis Group insurance brokers demanding to be paid a living wage and better conditions of service.
Climate Rush hits RBS HQ
RBS, 250 Bishopsgate
Tamsin Omond says ‘Give us our money back and stop trashing the planet’
Here’s what I wrote back in 2009:
“The banks would have gone bankrupt but the government stepped in and paid off the former bosses – including Sir Fred Goowin of RBS – with double gold plated platinum pension pots as a reward for their greed, incompetence and dodgy investments. But even under the new management – unfortunately not of the people who are still just ripped off – the banks continue to bankroll the trashing of the planet, backing schemes such as a coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth.
So the Climate Rush came to the HQ of the RBS in Bishopsgate to protest (and party), drawing media attention to the bank’s crimes against the planet. Around a couple of hundred protesters, some in various costumes, a cycled hauled sound system for speeches and music and some lively dancers made it an enjoyable protest for those taking part and those passing by – and a little more to remember and talk about than a simple static protest.”
This was a piece of street theatre but the police had come out in force, obviously expecting something different, part of a growing paranoia about the coming ‘Storm The Banks‘ protest which this was advertised here and elsewhere to take place on April 1st. Obviously the police do not understand hyperbole.
A young ‘banker’ accepts the ‘RBS FInancial Fool’ award – a dead parrot – on behalf of RBS
In the lead up to April 1st, the G20 Meltdown – Financial Fools Day police (and politicians) released a number of provocative statements to try and justify the actions they were intending to take against the protesters – including the peaceful Climate Camp on Bishopsgate.
On April 1st, there was some disruptive action by protesters but the police went wild. I’d left a peaceful protest at Bank when I saw that police were beginning to kettle the protesters as I wanted to cover an event at the US Embassy. Had I stayed I too might have been assaulted by police like a fellow photographer. A police baton took out much of his teeth – he later received a large cash settlement from the police for his injuries and the cost of extensive dental treatment.
Later riot police stormed peaceful protesters in the Climate Camp who raised their hands in the air chanting “this is not a riot!” and later got they even more out of hand, wantonly smashing property and people. It was a riot, but by the police.
And Ian Tomlinson, an innocent bystander, going home through the Bank area after his work as a newsvendor, died after an unprovoked attack by a riot police officer.
On March 5th, the police simply stood and watched the protest – more a carnival, with presentations of the ‘RBS Financial Fool‘ award – a dead parrot – and the ‘No New Coal Award‘ and much music and dancing.
Cleaners at Willis Group, one of the City’s largest insurance brokers with offices facing those of Lloyds, were protesting outside the Willis building after five cleaners were sacked for trying to organise cleaners to take action and campaign for a living wage and better conditions of service.
Unite had been one of the unions involved in the Justice for Cleaners campaign which was launched in May 2006, but were no longer supporting the cleaners – and Unite had even agreed with the Willis management that these outsourced cleaners would not hold demonstrations outside the offices without informing them, They refused to support the sacked cleaners against their employer Mitie.
So the cleaners decided they needed a union that would support them, and went to the London branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, established in 2005 at the time of the centenary of the international IWW movement.
Later cleaners formed their own grass roots unions, the IWGB, CAIWU and the UVW who branched out to support other low paid workers, with very successful campaigns against outsourcing, low pay and harassment, gaining the London Living Wage for many of their members.
Margaretta D’Arcy, Education & African Refugees: On Wednesday 22nd January I photographed a protest at the Irish Embassy demanding the release of anti-war activist Margaretta D’Arcy before going to a peaceful march by London Universitry students for democratic, public education free from exploitation and police violence. Finally I went to a protest close to the Israeli Embassy in Kensington in solidarity with African asylum seekers in Israel who are protesting their against arbitrary arrests, imprisonment and inhumane treatment.
Release Margaretta D’Arcy Now!
Irish Embassy
Selma James calls for the release of Margaretta D’Arcy
Margaretta D’Arcy (1934 – 2025) was an prominent Irish actress, writer, playwright and anti-war activist and a veteran of the Women’s Peace Camp at the US airbase on Greenham Common, where she had been a powerful member of the group at the ‘Yellow Gate’; protests by the Peace Camp eventually led to a legal challenge and the closure of the US Base with its cruise missiles.
Earlier in 1961 D’Arcy had joined the anti-nuclear Committee of 100 and in 1981 had been imprisoned for the first time after defacing a display at the Ulster Museum. Active in many campaigns in Ireland including the Shell to Sea campaign against the Corrib gas project and the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, she was arrested in October 2012 for lying down on the runway at Shannon in a peaceful direct action by members of Galway Alliance Against War against the use since 2001 of Shannon by Galway Alliance Against War in violation of Irish neutrality.
D’Arcy received a suspended sentence but after she had been arrested again on the runway at Shannon in September 2013 and she refused to sign a bond to keep out of restricted areas at Shannon the suspended 12-week sentence was reactivated. After serving nine and a half weeks of this she was released from Dublin prison in March 2014. She continued her activism until a few days before her death in 2025.
The protest at the Irish Embassy in London took place a week after D’Arcy was arrested to serve her suspended sentence, and around 50 people had come with banners and posters for a protest outside the Irish Embassy in London and to deliver a petition calling for her immediate release.
On My London Diary I list some of the many groups who supported the protest and most of those who spoke.
The protest by London University students took place following a number of incidents in London and elsewhere the previous term when university management had called police onto the campus or gone to the courts to prevent or oppose student protests or to harass students. This had led in December 2013 to a Cops Off Campus National Student Protest.
A student speaks about police violence, and in particular violence directed at the black community including the killing of Mark Duggan
The protest began outside the University of London Union which the university is closing down with a speech by ULU President Michael Chessum and also by representatives of the lecturers who were taking action that week and the cleaners, maintenance and security staff who were about to hold a 3-day strike in their ‘3 Cosas’ campaign for sick pay, holidays and pensions, as well as for recognition for their union, the ndependent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB). Another student spoke about police violence, in particular against the black community.
A few from the black bloc enter Woburn House, home to theUniversity & Colleges Employers Association but it was only a token gesture
The marchers then went on a tour of key university sites including Senate House and the University & Colleges Employers Association in Tavistock Square where there was a brief token occupation of the lobby before going on to protest outside Holborn Police Station. Here as well as protesting against police violence they also protested the police execution of Mark Duggan.
They continued down Kingsway to Aldwych and the Strand, ending the march with a short rally outside the Royal Courts of Justice. The police had kept at a discreet distance while the students were in the university area but both the police station and the law courts were guarded by a line of police.
At the end of the rally Alfie Meadows suggested people might like to go on to a protest at the Royal Opera House, where the cleaners are also going on strike the next month for a living wage and proper conditions of work. About half the students then marched off with him, but I needed to leave for another event.
Tens of thousands of African asylum seekers had been protesting in Israel since the start of the year holding mass rallies against their treatment by the Israeli authorities.
Protesters stand on the pavement in front of the private road in which the Israeli embassy is located
In December new laws in Israel had meant entering the country without proper papers could be held for up to a year without trial, and those already in the country could be held in indefinite detention. The detention facility in the Negev desert, like many other Israeli prisons, is run by the private security company G4S.
There were around 50,000 refugees currently living in Israel, most who had fled brutal conflicts in Sudan and Eritrea, with only a few hundred of their applications had been processed. Most keep alive by working illegally, exploited and in fear of arrest.
Recently a strike by those working as cleaners, cooks, dishwashers and other low paid workers had brought many restaurants, hotels and businesses to a standstill. They held a rally with over 20,000 in Rabin Square in the centre of Tel Aviv with banners saying ‘We are refugees, not criminals’ and demanding their rights.
The London protest was one of many around the world following a call by the African Asylum Seekers Community in Israel for international solidarity. It isn’t possible to protest outside the Israeli Embassy in London which is down a well-guarded private street, but the protesters gathered on the pavement in front of the entrance to this street, refusing police attempts to move them further away.
Scrooge Debenhams & Bikelife: Striking cleaners in the Independent Workers Union – CAIWU – protest outside Debenhams in Oxford Street with a noisy rally on Saturday 22nd December 2018, one of the biggest shopping days of the year. While I was there a large group of boys and young men on bikes rode past, some pulling wheelies.
Debenhams Pay Your Cleaners
Oxford St
Debenhams Cleaners who belong to CAIWU call for a real Living Wage
The workers who clean the Debenhams store were not employed by them but are outsourced, working forInterserve, a company who have the cleaning contract with Debenhams.
Interserve are lousy employers, treating the cleaners badly and paying the minimum legal wage and conditions, interested only in making as much as they can for their owners or shareholders. The minimum wage isn’t enough to live on in London and reputable employers pay workers at least the London Living Wage – an amount determined every year and roughly 30% above the legal minimum.
As well as a living wage, workers also want to be treated with dignity & respect – as a passing bus puts it ‘Recognising me as someone not something‘.
The workers belong to the Cleaners & Allied Independent Workers Union, CAIWU, but Interserve refuses to recognise the union or to have any talks with them about their claim for the London Living Wage. CAIWU is one of several small grassroots trade unions which has been very successful in getting better pay and condition for low paid workers.
Organiser Alberto Durango spoke occasionally to tell shoppers why the cleaners at Debenhams were on strike and in Spanish to the cleaners (and some tourists)
Reputable companies such as Debenhams would be ashamed to pay their workers so little or treat them so badly and by using companies like Interserve they claim they have no responibilty for the people who work inside their shops to keep them clean.
Several people stopped for a while to dance when the cleaners played Latin-American music
Many of the shoppers walking by took leaflets and showed support for the cleaners and were surprised that Debenhams could legally evade their responsibilities to the workers in this way.
The cleaners had begun their picket in the early morning and were still protesting when I had to leave.
While I was outside Debenhams a group of several hundred mainly boys and young men rode past on bicycles, some balancing just on the rear wheel of their bikes. They were obviously having fun but it looked rather dangerous as they wove in and out of traffic.
I had heard there was going to be some sort of bike ride in London that day, but could not find any of the details in advance. And when it did arrive it came as a surprise and I didn’t have time to think about my camera settings but took the pictures at the same ISO and shutter speed as I had been using for the protest on the pavement – which meant many of my pictures were blurred and unusable.
I didn’t have time to choose a different position either, though I think the yellow ‘bananas’ bus was quite appropriate.
The guy getting a lift on the handlebars was one of the few wearing a cycle helmet
Later I found that these ‘UK Bike Life Wheelie Rides’ begin somewhere south of the river perhaps at Tower Bridge, Druid St or Leake St, around lunchtime. They have fun swarming around the city, showing off with wheelies, stopping traffic, riding on pavements as well as roads, ignoring traffic lights, forcing drivers to stop and generally behaving badly on bikes. Several missed me by inches as they sped past while I was taking pictures.
Some certainly displayed an impressive degree of skill, but it still seemed dangerous both to themselves and to other road users and pedestrians – and an activity that gives cycling a bad name.
Cleaners Protest at Tower of London: On Saturday 3rd November 2012 the trade union Industrial Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) held a high profile protest outside the Tower of London as a part of their campaign to get the London Living Wage, better contracts and improved working condition and management for the workers who clean the Tower, one of London’s major tourist attractions.
The Tower of London is run by a charity, ‘Historic Royal Palaces’, which also runs other royal palaces on behalf of the Crown, but they employ no cleaners. Instead they were using the cleaning contractor MITIE to employ the workers who clean the Tower and make it fit for visitors. By outsourcing the work in this way they try to deny responsibility for the poverty wages, lousy pensions, holidays and sick pay, poor physical conditions, overworking and bad management of their workers.
The IWGB was formed by Latin American cleaners organising for better working conditions earlier in 2012 after they had become disillusioned with the lack of support for lower paid workers by some of our traditional unions as “a worker led union organising the unorganised, the abandoned and the betrayed.”
IWGB organiser Alberto Durango at the Tower
It remains a powerful grass-roots trade union, based on building workers’ power and developing leadership by its members, taking action through strikes, powerful protests and legal actions and developing solidarity across cultural and language barriers.
PCS members came to support the protest
The union has developed significantly since 2012 and has had many victories in its campaigns to improve the conditions of low paid workers. It now “organises couriers, cycling instructors, charity workers, yoga teachers, cleaners, security officers, video game workers, nannies, university workers, foster carers, private hire drivers and more.”
Security stop the protesters at the gate, where the protest continues
I reported on many of the protests by the IWGB and other grass-roots unions including the United Voices of the World (UVW) over the years – and you can see many of my reports on My London Diary. There had been a number of protests by cleaners before these unions were formed, but they brought a new level of activity and creativity to the protests.
Owen Jones speaking
The campaign for a London Living Wage was started by London Citizens in 2001 and recognises the extra costs of living in the city – something that had long been recognised in professions such as teaching, where teachers in Greater London received a London allowance. The London Living Wage level is calculated independently and supported by successive Mayors of London, but companies are not obliged to pay the extra amount above the National Minimum Wage (rebranded the National Living Wage for those over 21 a few years ago.)
A speaker from PCS
As I wrote in 2012, the London Living Wage “still meets with bitter opposition from some of the most profitable companies around who are low pay employers, including MITIE, who last year increased their profit margins to 5.6% and had a pre-tax profit of £104.5m.”
A cleaner speaking
The IWGB’s campaign as I also wrote, is “not only about wages, but also about civil rights, dignity and respect. MITIE seems to be treating its workers and employment law with contempt. The cleaners demand justice and fair treatment, and say they are treated as medieval serfs. They are asking for:
• the London Living Wage of £8.30 per hour
• proper contracts which reflect the actual hours of work and provide
holidays and other normal employment benefits
• adequate staffing levels to cope with the workload
• proper changing and washing facilities
• proper Health & Safety training for managers and workers, and risk
assessments of tasks
• proper safety equipment including protective gloves etc"
MITIE’s response to the campaign was simply “to ban the IWGB. Senior HR Manager Kevin Watson-Griffin stated ‘IWGB representatives will not be permitted access to any MITIE site, including the Tower of London, Barbican etc. to support the IWGB members who are employed by MITIE.'”
After an hour or so of noisy protest it was time to go – but with the message “We’ll be back“
On My London Diary you can read more about the protest at the Tower, including what actually happened at this very public, very visible and very noisy protest which received considerable support from trade unionists from other unions involved with cleaners including the PCS, RMT and Unison. I also wrote about some of the speakers and their speeches and the photographs include most of them including journalist Owen Jones.
Custody Deaths, Gurkhas & John Lewis: On Saturday 26th October I went to the annual procession to Downing Street by the United Families and Friends Campaign in memory of all those who have died in the custody of police or prison officers, in immigration detention or psychiatric hospitals. Sitting opposite Downing Street were Gurkhas on hunger strike demanding justice. I rushed away to join the IWGB protesting inside John Lewis’s flagship store in Oxford St demanding that the workers that clean John Lewis stores be paid a living wage and share in the benefits and profits enjoyed by other workers in the stores.
United Families & Friends Remember the Killed
Whitehall
Many from the families of people who have died in police custody, prisons, immigration detention or psychiatric hospitals had gathered in Trafalgar Square along with supporters for the annual procession calling for justice.
Although there have been several thousand who have died in the last twenty or thirty years, some clearly killed by police and others in highly suspicious circumstances, inquests and other investigations have failed to provide any justice. Instead there has been a long history of lies, failures to properly investigate, cover-ups, and perjury.
Marcia Rigg and Carole Duggan
On My London Diary I quoted the description by the UFFC:
The United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) is a coalition of families and friends of those that have died in the custody of police and prison officers as well as those who are killed in immigration detention and secure psychiatric hospitals. It includes the families of Roger Sylvester, Leon Patterson, Rocky Bennett, Alton Manning, Christopher Alder, Brian Douglas, Joy Gardner, Aseta Simms, Ricky Bishop, Paul Jemmott, Harry Stanley, Glenn Howard, Mikey Powell, Jason McPherson, Lloyd Butler, Azelle Rodney, Sean Rigg, Habib Ullah, Olaseni Lewis, David Emmanuel (aka Smiley Culture), Kingsley Burrell, Demetre Fraser, Mark Duggan and Anthony Grainger to name but a few. Together we have built a network for collective action to end deaths in custody.
Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennet, twin sister of Leon Patterson killed in a Stockport police cell in 1992
Among those holding the main banner as the march went at a funereal pace down Whitehall were Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennet, twin sister of Leon Patterson, murdered by Manchester police in 1992, Marcia Rigg, one of the sisters of Sean Rigg, killed by police in Brixton in 2008 and Carole Duggan, the aunt of Mark Duggan whose shooting by police sparked riots in August 2011.
Thomas Orchard’s sister speaks, on left Marcia Rigg, at right Ajibola Lewis and Carole Duggan
At the rally opposite Downing Street many family members spoke in turn in a shameful exposition of injustice perpetrated by police, prison officers and mental health workers. You can read more and see most of them in the captions and pictures on My London Dairy at United Families & Friends Remember Killed.
Gurkhas Hunger Strike for Justice
Downing St
Gurkhas were sitting opposite Downing Stree on a serial hunger strike after failing to receive any action from Prime Minister David Cameron to their petition calling for fair treatment for elderly Gurkha veterans who are living in extreme poverty.
On 24th October 2013 they had begun a programme of nonviolent resistance (Satyagraha) with hunger strikes, at first with a “13 days relay hunger strike in the name of the 13 Ghurka VCs followed by a fast-unto-death.“
I met the cleaners and their supporters in the café on the top floor of John Lewis’s flagship store on Oxford Street for a protest by their union, the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB.)
Organiser Alberto Durango and IWGB Secretary Chris Ford lead the protesters
All the other people who work for John Lewis in their stores are directly employed by the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) and are ‘partners’ in the business with good conditions of service and decent pay, including an annual share in the company’s profits, which can amount to as much as an extra two months pay.
But JLP outsources the cleaning of its stores to a sub-contractor, who were paying them ‘poverty wages’, only around 80% of the London Living Wage, and employ them under far worse conditions of sickness, holidays and pensions than JLP staff.
By hiving off the cleaners to another company, JLP can still claim it is a ‘different sort of company’ with a strong ethical basis, but leave its cleaners – a vital part of its workforce – in poverty with minimal conditions of service.
They stop and let everyone know why they were protesting. The security staff watch but don’t interfere
In 2013, the cleaning contractor was a part of the Compass Group which had recently declared pre-tax profits for the year of £575 million. And JLP had made £50 million profit from its department stores. Despite their huge profits both were happy to shaft the cleaners.
A short rally inside the main entrance to the store
The cleaners were demanding to become employed by JLP, the owners of their workplace, and also to be paid the London Living Wage. JLP told them that this was not appropriate.
Raph Ashley, a JLP ‘partner’ sacked for supported the cleaners
Among those taking part in the protest were members of the RMT and PCS trade unions and former John Lewis ‘partner’ Raph Ashley, who like many other partners had supported the cleaners’ claim. He was sacked after he gave a newspaper interview raising concerns about the ethnic diversity at John Lewis and was told that ‘partners’ discussing pay and urging them to join a trade union was a disciplinary offence. The protest also demanded justice for Raph.
A manager asks the protesters to leave – and they slowly went out
In the café the protesters got out banners, flags, flyers, drums, horns, whistles and a megaphone and walked noisily around the fifth floor before going down the escalator. At each floor they had to walk around to reach the down escalator, and stopped on the way to explain to the shoppers why they were protesting. Many customers took their leaflets and expressed their support for the cleaners, with some applauding the protest.
They continued down to the basement and then came back up to the ground floor where they held a short rally just inside the main entrance with short speeches from RMT Assistant General Secretary Steve Hedley, IWGB Secretary Chris Ford and Chris Baugh, Assistant General Secretary of PCS.
The protest continues on Oxford Street in front of the store
By then the police had arrived and they told the JLP managers to o ask the protesters to leave the store, and they did so, continuing their protest on the crowded street outside for another half hour.
Muslim Veils, Illegal Goods, Murders, Union Busting and London: Saturday 25th September 2010 was a day for several fairly small protests around London, involving me in quite a lot of travelling around. As well as photographing Muslim women protesting against a French ban on Islamic face veils, a protest and counter-protest at a shop selling products from an illegal Israeli settlement, families of murder victimes calling for tougher sentences and a protest against a company employing cleaners for their union-busting activities I also took quite a few pictures as I rode buses and walked around between these events.
Hizb ut-Tahrir Women Protest French Veil Ban
French Embassy, Knightsbridge
I’ve often commented on how women were normally sidelined – literally – at protests by the now banned Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain but at this protest outside the French Embassy they were very much at the front, with around 80 women, many with children, and only a handful of men – who did seem to be organising the event.
They were to protest against a law passed by the French Senate on September 14th to prohibit all full-face coverings in public places, clearly aimed at Muslim women who wear the niqab or burkha.
Such garments were then rarely worn in France, certainly outside of Paris and some Mediterranean coastal cities, and of France’s 2-3 million Muslim women the ban is thought likely to only effect around two thousand of them.
Very few of the women at the protest wore veil, most simply covering their hair. The protest in a wealthy area of London close to Harrods was passed by quite a few women who were veiled, but who all seemed to ignore the protest.
I wrote:’ Speakers at the event castigated the French government for taking a measure which they felt limited the freedom of women to make decisions on what they wear while at the same time ignoring issues that degrade and oppress women – such as domestic violence, and “the objectification and sexualisation of women’s bodies in pornography, lap-dancing clubs, advertising, and the entertainment industry, all permitted under the premise of freedom of expression and driven by the pursuit of profit in Western societies.”‘
This was one of a series of fortnightly demonstrations outside the Covent Garden Ahava shop which sells products manufactured in an illegal Israel settlement on occupied Palestinian land. These protests were a part of an international ‘Stolen Beauty’ campaign organised by ‘Code Pink’, a women-initiated grass-roots peace and social justice movement which began when American women came together to oppose the invasion of Iraq.
As usual there was a smaller counter-demonstration by a few EDL supporters and a handful of Zionists, handing out leaflets which described the call for a boycott as “bigoted, complicitly and politically antisemitic“.
The protesters say Israel in in breach of international law and Ahava “has openly flouted tax requirements by exploiting the EU-Israel trade agreement and violates UK DEFRA guidelines in respect of proper labelling.” I read the leaflets they handed out and the web sites calling for the boycott and could find no evidence of anti-Semitism. Many calling for a boycott of Israeli goods are Jewish and I reflected that when I began taking photographs in London no Jewish shop would have opened on a Saturday.
‘Families Fighting For Justice’, including many families of murder victims, marched through London on Saturday calling for tougher sentences for murder – with life sentences meaning life imprisonment.
The group was formed in Liverpool by Jean Taylor whose sister, son and daughter were all murder victims. She set up a petition which said “Life should mean life, for first degree murder, also tougher sentences for manslaughter” and in 2008 recruited families of other murder victims to join her and march with it to Downing Street.
You can read some of the horrendous stories on the groups web site, and some I was told at the protest were truly heartbreaking and showed why many ordinary people have lost faith in our justice system – and I highlight one of them on My London Diary.
But as I also commented “I don’t feel that the ‘Life 4 A Life’ campaign would actually do much if anything to solve the problem“. Murder is never a rational act where murderers weigh up how long a sentence they might get if caught and draconian sentences would have little or no deterrent effect. Things more likely to help include better social services and policing, but we really need “changes that bring back some of our community spirit and give people a greater engagement.” There really is such a thing as society despite Thatcher’s dismissal and we uirgently need more of it.
A short protest by around 20 trade unionists outside the Initial Rentokil offices in Brunswick Place near Old Street on Saturday afternoon marked the start of the campaign against the company for its intimidation and bullying of union members who choose to speak out about pay and employment practices and play an active role in the union.
The cleaners employed by the company at the Eurostar terminals at St. Pancras International were RMT members and the dispute between the union and Initial has continued.
The unions alleged that Initial was deliberately employing workers with doubtful immigration status so they can pay minimum wages and provide sub-standard working conditions, often requiring them to work without proper safety equipment or precautions. They allege that workers who question their rights or attempt to organise have been reported to the immigration authorities who have then raided the workplace.
One bus I didn’t travel on but photographed outside the former Aldwych Piccadilly Line Station.
‘I am Here’, one of London’s largest art installations overlooking the Regent’s Canal at Haggerston with photographs of former residents on empty flats where people are moved out to redevelop the Haggerston estate – with the promise they will be moved back to new social housing on the estate
Missing letters on an advert beside the canal for Ron’s Shellfish on sale every Saturday at Hoxton Market create a puzzle for those walking by, though this and another picture on My London Diary concentrate on the images and miss out the centre of the sign.
Decoration on the Suleymaniye Mosque on Kingsland Road which mainly serves the British Turkish community.
Barts NHS Cleaners march against Serco: On Saturday 15th July 2017 a rally and march in Whitechapel follow five days of strike by cleaners and porters at the Royal London Hospital and the other East London hospitals in the Barts NHS Trust – Mile End Hospital, Newham University Hospital, St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Whipps Cross University Hospital.
John McDonnell with others on the march down the Mile End Rd
Cleaning, portering, laundry, cleaning and security services were outsourced to Serco in 2017 and the workers involved immediately found their conditions being adversely affected. Serco’s first action was to write to them telling they were no longer allowed paid tea breaks; the workers sat in the canteen and refused to move before these were re-instated. But they accused Serco of increasing stress and workload with a climate of bullying, intimidation and fear and a failure to set up procedures for reporting problems with facilities and other issues.
When Serco refused a Unite claim for 30p per hour in line with inflation and cost of living increases in London the workers voted 99% in favour of strike action. Serco illegally brought in poorly trained agency workers to replace them and on the strike days conditions became unsanitary and many patients did not get hot meals.
Barts Trust had put these services out to tender to save money they needed to pay out £2.4million a week because of a disastrous PFI contract made under New Labour. Although It had provided a much-needed new hospital completed in 2016 but with two floors Barts didn’t have the money to fit out, it left them paying these huge sums long into the future. But Barts were attempting to save money at the expense of their workers and endangering patients.
Gail Cartmel, , Assistant General Secretary at Unite and TUC Executive member
The protest began on the busy street outside the old Royal London buildings but there were soon too many for the pavement here and we moved around to the side of the hospital for a rally, where speakers including Gail Cartmel of Unite, John McDonnell, then Shadow Chancellor and Unite pickets and other trade unionists including Victor Ramirez of United Voices of the World who spoke forcefully in Spanish – the first language of many of the cleaners – spoke from a balcony above the crowd – and I was able to take some pictures. Some brought greetings and support from other unions.
Serco employ mainly migrant workers in other public sector workplaces as well as running immigration prisons such as Yarl’s Wood where migrant women and families are daily repressed and subject to physical and sexual abuse and some had come to support the Barts workers and also to protest against their activities elsewhere.
Eventually the marchers formed up behind the banner and made there way along Mile End Road to another rally in a small park close to Mile End Hospital, where there were a few more speakers before we all dispersed.
Back in 2003 I’d spent time in several hospitals and had experienced a clear difference between the standards of cleaning and food between those with contracted out cleaners who were allowed insufficient time to clean the wards and one where the cleaners were still a part of the hospital team. It was the difference between dirt and used needles under my bed and a spotless shiny floor.
Victor Ramirez of UVW
Protests continued at Barts and in 2023 Serco withdrew early from the contract. Both Unite and Unison claimed victory for the decision by Barts to directly employ the workers under the same conditions as other existing staff.
Labour in opposition were clearly opposed to outsourcing particularly in the public services and promising to outlaw it, but the Employment Rights Bill Implementation Roadmap published this month seems to have drawn back from the earlier promise and contains no explicit reference to outsourcing.
I was pleased with the photographs I had been able to make at the event and as well as the few here there are many more you can see on My London Diary at Barts NHS Cleaners march against Serco.
LSE Cleaners Protest, Lisa Arrested: Wednesday 15th March 2017 was the first day of a two-day strike by cleaners at the LSE in support of their campaign demanding equal sick pay, holidays and pensions etc to similar workers directly employed by the LSE and an end to bullying and discrimination by their employer Noonan.
LSE Cleaner Mildred Simpson
I had photographed the start of their campaign at a meeting led by their union, the United Voices of the World, as a part of the LSE’s 3-day ‘Resist’ Festival on 29th September 2016 and a number of protests at the LSE since then.
On 15th March the cleaners had a picket line since the early morning – cleaners start work while most of us are still in bed – and I joined them for a lunchtime rally. Their campaign had a great deal of support from students at the LSE and had a large banner ‘L$E: The London School of Exploitation‘.
Grim Chip recited several of his short poems
Others who had come to support the cleaners included Grim Chip of Poets on the Picket Line and LSE academics Lisa McKenzie and David Graeber and a few from Class War. But there were passionate and effective speeches from a number of the cleaners, including Mildred Simpson, one of the LSE cleaners and others in the UVW.
Alba, right, a LSE cleaner unfairly dismissed in September 2016
At the end of the rally, the protesters marched through the campus and across Kingsway to the building which houses the LSE Estates Office where a large group walked into the foyer demanding to see the Estates Manager. Some were carrying mops and buckets to show their support for the cleaners.
Security came to talk with the protesters, though the protesters were making too much noise to hear them and the protest continued with a short speech from UVW General Secretary Petros Elia to explain when the foyer was being occupied.
Eventually the protesters sat down and waited, still making a lot of noise . People working in the building were still able to leave or enter the building unhindered walking past the protest – but would hear and read why the noisy protest was taking place.
Eventually police arrived and talked with the building security and some of the protesters who soon began dancing in the foyer to music on the public address system the UVW had brought.
More police arrived and decided to stop people entering or leaving the offices. They talked with UVW General Secretary Petros Elia who told them it was a peaceful protest and they would leave after they had made their point to the LSE facilities manager – if the police could persuade him to talk to them.
Eventually this talk did take place, though some way back from the foyer where we could only see them from a distance. The talk went on for around five minutes, and Petros then returned smiling to tell the protesters that the LSE who had until now been refusing to talk to the cleaners had agreed to a meeting.
The protesters then walked out to join those who had been continuing to protest on the pavement outside, and they prepared to end the protest.
But unexpectedly police moved in and surrounded Lisa McKenzie telling her she was under arrest.
They pushed her roughly to the wall of the building and handcuffed her pushing away excessively roughly those who tried to stop the arrest and taking her to a waiting police van.
Apparently Lisa was being charged with assault on the receptionist when the protesters entered the building. I was close behind and neither I nor the other protesters saw any evidence of assault by her as she entered the offices holding one end of the banner with others.
Everyone was shocked, both by the arrest and by the police violence. The fact that none of the others holding the banner were arrested strongly suggested that her arrest was politically motivated, probably due to pressure from the LSE for her support for the cleaners – she had organised the ‘Resist’ Festival where the cleaners campaign had been launched.
Lisa had previously been the subject of a clearly political arrest when she was wrongly charged with three offences at a protest in February 2015 while she was standing in the General Election against Iain Duncan Smith. Perhaps the police were still feeling aggrieved after failing signally to achieve a conviction. This time they were not stupid enough to take her to court.
