Posts Tagged ‘Houghton St’

Justice for LSE Cleaners – 2016

Monday, December 2nd, 2024

Justice for LSE Cleaners: Cleaners at the London School of Economics, one of the UK’s most prestigious universities, had begun their campaign to get decent working conditions at the end of September 2016. On 2nd December there was a protest at the LSE in support of this.

Justice for LSE Cleaners - 2016

The LSE itself could not possibly have been seen to employ the cleaners under the exploitative terms and bullying management they were working under, but were turning a blind eye to what was happening to workers on their site who were employed under a contract between the LSE and cleaning company, Noonan.

Justice for LSE Cleaners - 2016

Outsourcing contracts such as these are always a bad deal for workers. At the LSE they were getting only the statutory minimum holidays, sick pay and pension contributions, while workers on similar grades directly employed by the LSE have more generous terms.

Justice for LSE Cleaners - 2016

The cleaners had also lost rest facilities and were not allowed in the canteen with other workers. They were being exposed to dangerous chemicals without proper protection and were not allowed to use lifts to move heavy equipment between floors were are generally treated like dirt.

Justice for LSE Cleaners - 2016
David Graeber and Alba

At the start of the campaign one of the cleaners, Alba Pasimo, had shocked the meeting by standing up and describing how she had been sacked this week by the cleaning contractor after 12 years of service at the LSE.

Justice for LSE Cleaners - 2016

Their campaign, led by their union the United Voices of the World, was widely supported by LSE students, some teaching staff and others from the trade union movement.

A series of protests, including this on December 2nd 2016, supported the campaign for the re-instatement of sacked cleaner Alba, better management with achievable workloads and the same conditions of service including sick pay, pensions and paid leave from contractor Noonan as those of equivalent grade staff directly employed by the LSE. They were also calling for union recognition of the UVW.

Considerable building work taking place at the LSE meant that the only direct route between the Old Building in Houghton Street and the rest of the campus was through that building, and after a rally outside, the protesters marched into the building, ignoring attempts by security staff to stop them, to make their way through.

They marched around the rest of the campus and then to the offices used by both the LSE and the cleaner’s employers Noonan on the corner of Aldwych at No 1 Kingsway where they held a rally on the wide area of pavement.

They then went back onto the campus for a final rally outside the LSE Library, warning the LSE management that actions like this will continue until Alba is reinstated and the cleaners get an offer of equal treatment from Noonan and the LSE.

In August 2017 the UVW were “proud to announce that the LSE cleaners will be BROUGHT IN-HOUSE and become employees of the LSE from Spring 2018! This will ensure they get, among other things, 41 days annual leave, 6 months full pay sick pay and 6 months half pay sick pay, plus proper employer pension contributions of up to 13% of their salary.”

UVW’s Petros Elia photographs a LSE manager who has been photographing the protest

Alba had been reinstated following an industrial tribunal hearing in July 2017 which declared her “dismissal not only unlawful but profoundly and manifestly unfair.”. The UVW then stated “Alba was the 5th sacked cleaner we have got reinstated at the LSE in the last year.”

The UVW continues to fight for the LSE cleaners. In 2023 it forced the LSE to back down and reinstate a UVW strike leader and migrant cleaner from Colombia who had played an important role in a fight over the underpayment of holiday pay. And they forced the LSE to repay a significant part of the holiday pay which workers are owned, though a legal fight continues to get the rest. At the LSE and in many other workplaces and sectors the UVW continues to struggle for justice for low paid workers.

More on the protest on 2nd December 2016 at Justice for LSE Cleaners.


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More London 1987

Friday, September 18th, 2020
Windsor Court, Moscow Road, Bayswater, Westminster, 1987 87-7c-13-positive_2400

Moscow Road and St Petersburg Place were probably named at the time of the visit by  Tsar Alexander I to England in 1814, when print seller Edward Orme was beginning to develop the area. I think that Windsor Court replaced Salem Gardens which had around 350 people living in 35 houses with many working-class families living in single rooms, and was built in or shortly before 1907. A large 4 bedroom flat here is currently on sale for £2.4 million and the there are doubtless high service charges for the portered block.

LSE, Houghton St, Westminster, 1987 87-7c-32-positive_2400

This view of the London School of Economics is from Clare Market looking towards Houghton St and the area has for some years been a building site. The LSE  Centre Buildings Redevelopment is re-shaping Houghton Street and Clare Market and this view may emerge rather differently.

Lincoln's Inn Fields, Holborn, Camden, 1987 87-7c-34-positive_2400

The original house on this site, built in 1638-9 was rebuilt after it was bought by then solicitor-general Charles Talbot in 1730, but this semi-circular porch was added to the designs ofSir John Soane in 1795. Among early visitors to the house was Samuel Pepys whose patron Edward Montagu, the Earl of Sandwich lived here in 1664-1666. Apart from apparently inventing a useful portable food, Montagu was also largely responsible for bringing back the monarchy to England, a yoke we are still suffering under 360 years later. Dickens made it the home of the lawyer Tulkinghorn who was found dead here, shot through the heart in his Bleak House. Having been for 96 years the home of patent agents Marks & Clerk, in 2004 it became part of Garden Court Chambers.

New Court, Temple, City, 1987 87-7c-44-positive_2400

Not far away and still in legal London this picture shows New Court and Devreux Chambers in the Temple, an unduly picturesque image.

Camdonian, Barry Flanagan, sculpture, Lincoln's Inn Fields, Holborn, Camden, 1987 87-7c-54-positive_2400

Sculptor Barry Flanagan exhibited a smaller version of this sculpture, Maquette for Camdonian, for the 1980 Camden Sculpture Competition and they commissioned its big brother, Camdonian, to put at the north-east corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Its a site I often visited when photographing in this area of London, as a few yards to the south are one of London’s relatively few remaining public toilets. Camdonian is a structure that is different on every visit, changing with the lighting and with the graffiti which it regularly gathers.

It has its admirers (and I’m somewhat grudgingly one) but it has also probably attracted more negative comments than any other piece of public art in London.

An alley to its north, Great Turnstile, leads to High Holborn and to one of the better Wetherspoon’s pubs, Penderel’s Oak. Much though I abhor its owner’s politics and treatment of his staff this is a pub I’ve often visited in the past; one of my friends, now sadly deceased, used to add to his meagre earnings as an artist and photographer as a Wetherspoons Secret Diner, and recommended this as the best of their establishments. And although many have called for a boycott of ‘Spoons, my union friends advised against, well asking us not to cross any picket lines they may have, advice I was happily following until the Corona lockdown.

Kings Reach, Memorial, George V, Westminster, 1987 87-7c-56-positive_2400

It wasn’t enough just to have a mug and postage stamps, King George V’s silver jubilee was marked a by plaques under Temple Stairs Arch, part of Bazalgette’s 1868 Embankment plans on the bank of the River Thames and the Port of London Authority “renamed” this stretch of river between Westminster and London Bridges as Kings Reach. Although it’s always said to have been renamed, nobody appears to know any previous name for this part of the river.

There are two cherubs, one on each side of a large block at the centre of the arch. This one, on the upstream side has ripped out the mast and sail of a ship he is sitting on and is waving them in his right hand while his left points towards the river. A rather angry looking sea-god looks down over him. These are said to be by Charles Leighfield Jonah Doman (1884-1944) who also provided sculptures for Lloyd’s 1925 building in Leadenhall St and Liberty’s in Regent St and were presumably added in 1935.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.