Living Wage, New Era & John Lewis – on Saturday 13th December 29014 a Santa led protests in Brixton for a living wage for shop workers, Class War protested against property developers wanted to evict tenants on a Hackney estate so they can refurbish and let them at high private rents, and a cleaners union protested inside John Lewis on Oxford street for a living wage and better treatment for cleaners working there.
‘Santa’s Naughty List’ Living Wage – Brixton
Lambeth Living Wage campaigners, led by an impressive Santa, protested in and outside shops in the centre of Brixton, handing out fliers calling for all workers to be paid a living wage. They urged shop workers to join a union and gave out forms.
The protest was supported by Unite the Resistance, the Socialist Party and Unison (who provided the Santa costume) and also the Fast Food Rights Hungry for Justice campaign supported by the Bakers, Food & Allied Workers Union, BFWAWU, the National Shop Stewards Network and other groups.
The small group went into a number of shops and used a megaphone to tell shoppers and workers why they were protesting and handed on union membership forms to the workers there. At some stores they were stopped as they tried to enter and instead protested outside, and where they were able to walk in they left when requested.
I met them at the first shop they protested at, Morleys Stores and went along with them to Subway and Poundland before I had to leave for another protest. They continued visiting more shops for a couple of hours.
Class War: ‘Evict Westbrook, Not New Era’ – Berkeley Sq
Supporters of Class War protested at the Mayfair offices of US property developers Westbrook Partners in solidarity with the tenants of the Hackney New Era Estate. Westbrook see the estate simply as an opportunity to make large profits and intend to evict the existing tenants of these low rent social properties by Christmas so they can then refurbish them and then re-let them at market rents, around four times as much as the threatened tenants were paying.
This was a smaller protest than either the organisers or police had anticipated. It hadn’t been well publicised and illness and some disputes between supporters of Class War had reduced the numbers attending, though a few of the New Era residents had also come to protest.
Class War arrived with two banners and some placards and a Christmas Card for Westbrook Partners with some far from seasonal greetings. Rather to my surprise, a representative from Westbrook was present to meet the protesters and receive the card.
Protests by the New Era residents had earlier attracted considerable media attention, particularly after a video by Russell Brand went viral. A few days after this protest Westbook who were also under pressure from Hackney Council sold the estate to the Dolphin Square Foundation, a charity which provides secure social accommodation, and the threat of evictions was lifted.
Cleaners Xmas Protest in John Lewis – Osford Street
The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) and customers protested inside John Lewis’s Oxford St store, calling for the London Living Wage for cleaners there and an end to their treatment as second-class citizens. Many of the Christmas shoppers inside the store applauded their noisy protest.
I met with the IWGB an hour before the protest and they told me they planned to protest inside the flagship John Lewis store on Oxford Street which would be full of Christmas shoppers and told me when I could meet them at the restaurant on the 5th floor.
I arrived to find them unpacking their banners and placards and a PA system, with John Lewis staff watching them and asking them not to get in the way of people taking their food to the tables, so they cleared the way.
The protest began with a speech by IWGB organiser Alberto Durango to let those in the restaurant know why they were protesting and then the group moved off, stopping at A suitable point to share the message that John Lewis does not employ the cleaners, but uses a cleaning contractor. This means the cleaners get low pay, poorer conditions; they want to be paid a living wage and to be treated like the others who work in the store.
Along with the cleaners were a group of John Lewis Customers who met and marched with them with placards ‘JOHN LEWIS YOUR CUSTOMERS SAY PAY YOUR CLEANERS THE LIVING WAGE’.
It was a noisy protest and attracted the attention of many shoppers at various levels of the store as they protesters slowly made their way down floor by floor, stopping on the balcony at each level.
By the time they reached the third floor, John Lewis managers were asking the protesters to stop and leave the store. The continued on their way down, protesting loudly as they did so. A few police arrived and began to go down with them.
When they reached the ground floor there was confusion with police and John Lewis security staff, some trying to stop the protesters leaving and others pushing them out and the protest continuing. I got pushed in all directions and my pictures here were largely blurred. Eventually together with most of the protesters I got outside and the protest continued there.
We get news that some people have been arrested inside the store. Outside one police officer tries to stop the protest by grabbing the amplifier, but people hold on to it and others shout and film him. He manages to pull out the leads, but then steps back, and the protest continues. Police rush out carrying one protester who has been arrested but is still shouting for cleaners to get a living wage and put him into the back of a police van.
Police won’t give any details of the arrests. Some of the IWGB went to wait outside the police station where people were arrested, waiting there until they were released in the early morning. I don’t think any were actually charged perhaps because mobile phone footage from inside the store shared on the web showed them being assaulted by police while trying to leave.
Cops Off Campus National Student Protest – Ten years ago today on Wednesday 11th December 2013 I was at the University of London for a large national student protest over the use of police against student protests on campus at several universities around the country.
At Sussex University the management had called the police onto the campus or gone to the courts to prevent or oppose student protests or harass students. A number of students had been arrested.
In London police had been called to protests over the closing down by management of the University of London Union and the 3 Cosas campaign supported by students for a living wage and decent conditions of employment – sick pay, holiday pay and pensions – for the low paid workers on campus. The cleaners union, the IWGB, had come to support the students at this protest.
The previous week in London there had been a large police presence harassing and arresting students at an emergency protest over police brutality in their eviction of students from the Senate House that Wednesday, with a total of over 40 arrests on that day and the following day.
When I had arrived for that protest, there were police vans parked in all the side streets around and later the police made several failed attempts to kettle the large group of students at the protest despite it being intended as an entirely peaceful and orderly march around some of the various sites of the university in the area.
The police actions on that occasion seemed totally unnecessary and it was hard not to see them as a deliberate attempt to provoke a violent response, but the students kept their heads, moved rapidly and outwitted them. My account of the protest at ‘Cops Off Campus’ Protest Police Brutality‘ ended with the sentence: “It did seem an incredible and pointless waste of public money, and it resulted in more inconvenience to the public than if the event had not been policed at all.”
I don’t for a moment imagine the police had been influenced by my account, though I do know from occasional comments made to me by officers at various protests that some of them at least followed me. I’m sure that they had come to the same obvious conclusion independently, and for the protest on 11th December there was not an officer in sight in the whole area.
There were speeched outside the University of London Union before the march moved off, at its front a ‘Book Bloc’ carrying large backed polystyrene foam shields with book titles, including George Orwell’s ‘1984’, particularly appropriate as the Senate House is said to have inspired Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth’, and alongside it were Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, Mary Woolstonecraft’s ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’, E P Thompson’s ‘The Making of the English Working Class’ and other classics.
When the march came to the gates to Senate House from Russell Square they found that these gates, normally open, had been locked and chained to prevent them entering, despite most of those present being members of the university. They are stout metal gates but the chains could not for long resist the bodies pushing against them and they gave way and the crowd surged into the car park.
After a few minutes the marchers made their way back to Russell Square and continued to march around the area, eventually coming to a halt outside SOAS, where the samba band was playing and they sat down, stood around or danced.
Later some went on to protest outside the law courts where the inquest on Mark Duggan, shot by police in 2011, was ending and then to Whitehall, but I left as I was getting tired and needed to file my pictures.
Reparations, North Woolwich & LouLou’s: Thursday 1st August 2019 was a long and busy day for me with an Afrikan Emancipation Day protest, finishing a walk in North Woolwich I’d begun six months earlier and photographing an evening protest outside the exclusive Mayfair club LouLou’s.
Afrikans demand reparations – Brixton, London.
People of African origin met in Windrush Square in the morning to demand an end of the Maangamizi, the continuing genocide and ecocide of African peoples and Africa on Afrikan Emancipation Day.
After speeches & libations they marched from Brixton to Westminster with a petition calling for an end to acts of violence by Britain, the misuse of taxes and the stolen legacy plundered from Afrika under the British Empire and European Imperialism and demanding reparations.
The protest was supported by Extinction Rebellion XR Connecting Communities who marched in an Ubuntu Non-Afrikan Allies bloc.
I left the march as it went past Brixton Police Station on its way to protest outside the Houses of Parliament so I could have some lunch before going to take pictures elsewhere.
I’d taken the tube back into central London to have a quick lunch before taking the DLR from Bank to London City to King George V Dock station for the final section of the walk I had begun in February but had run out of time to finish because I’d had to take a roundabout route to get there as the direct DLR services were suspended following an accident.
Bow Creek
This time the trains were running properly. They start from Bank and so come into the station empty and I was able to chose my seat and for once I found myself sitting next to a clean window on my way to North Woolwich and took a number of pictures.
Tate & Lyle
Later on my way back to Canary Wharf from King George V I was less lucky and the windows were rather grimy, but I still made a few images.
The footpath goes across these gates of the entrance lock to Albert Dock Basin
I took a few pictures as I walked from the elevated King George V station at North Woolwich to the King George V Dock entrance and joined the path by the river.
The lock here is huge, 243.8m long and 30.48m wide. I’d first photographed the area back in the 1980s as a part of a wider project on the Docklands following their closure, both in colour but mainly in black and white – in the album 1984 London Photographs. Although the docks themselves remain, much around them has changed, although there are still some derelict areas.
The riverside path here is part of the Capital Ring, and continues north and over lock at the Albert Dock entrance to the curiously desolate Armada Green Recreation Area.
Here the path ends, with beyond it the former site of the Beckton Gas Works, used as a location for at least 17 films and TV series since its closure, though best known as a stand-in for Vietnam in the 1987 Full Metal Jacket. Past that is the Beckton Sewage Treatment Works, set up in 1864 as part of Joseph Bazalgette’s scheme to treat London’s sewage and still receiving it from all of London north of the Thames.
I had to turn inland, through more recent development and the refurbished Gallions Hotel around Alber Dock Basin. I went briefly under the new bridge to see again the East London University student residences, then went back and across it, taking more pictures from the bridge and the road on my way back to King George V station.
Finally I joined the IWGB Cleaners and Facilities Branch outside the exclusive Mayfair private club LouLou’s where they were picketing and protesting for kitchen porters to be paid a living wage, be treated with dignity, respect and given decent terms and conditions including proper sick pay, holidays and pension contributions. Recently outsourced to ACT, porters want to be returned to direct employment.
Among those supporting them were Class War, and in the picture above Ian Bone confronts a police office asking why they protect and support the rich. Needless to say the officer had no answer to the question. In general the protesters were reasonably behaved and acting within the law, but police and security hired by the club worked together to try and prevent their protest being effective.
There were angry scenes as staff escorted wealthy clients of the £1800 a year club past the picket, particularly when some roughly pushed the protesters. Police repeatedly warned the protesters but not the security men or customers who had assaulted them. The security also tried to prevent the picket from handing their flier to the customers.
As at previous protests outside of the club, none of the security staff were wearing the visible SIA door supervisor licences required under the Private Security Industry Act 2001, but the police refused to take any action over this.
Police Protect The Rich: Our police are often said to protect the interests of the rich and powerful in our society, and their behaviour outside the exclusive Mayfair private club LouLou’s against members and supporters of the IWGB Cleaners and Facilities Branch on Thursday 11th July 2019 certainly seemed to demonstrate this.
Of course in part this reflects our laws, made by the overwhelmingly rich and powerful who sit in our parliament and generally serving their interests. There are laws that protect the rights of trade unions and our civil rights including the right to protest, but increasingly over the years under both Labour and Tory governments have brought in more and more restrictions on these.
But although the police have a duty to enforce the law, they often seem to fail to do so evenhandedly. Outside Lou-Lou’s they turned a blind eye to the security staff failing to wear their licences (if they had them) and to their assaults on the protesters.
Police had also closed the whole street running along the front of the club which boasts of being one of London’s most exclusive clubs, owned by Robin Birley, a friend of Boris Johnson and a major financial supporter of the Conservative Party. According to The Observer “It’s the place to be for royals, billionaires, A-list celebrities and socialites—when they can get their name of the list.” And the names they listed as frequent visitors were “Harry Styles, Lupita Nyong’o, Leonardo DiCaprio.”
The police themselves also seemed to be using unnecessary force and trying to impose unnecessary restrictions on the protesters, and this led to some angry scenes with two protesters being arrested. None of the heavy-handed security staff were warned or arrested and when IWGB officers complained to police about them, they were themselves threatened with arrest.
I was not stopped from taking photographs or touched by the security staff, but whenever I went near simply moved directly in front of me to try to prevent me photographing the wealthy clients going in to the £1800 a year club. This only encouraged me to take more pictures, by stepping further back and working more rapidly.
The Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) Cleaners and Facilities Branch were protesting on behalf of their members at the club, kitchen porters who were demanding to be paid a real living wage, treated with dignity, respect and given decent terms and conditions including proper sick pay, holidays and pension contributions.
Police knocked one protester to the ground – possibly accidentally
Until recently the kitchen porters were directly employed by the club, but they were recently outsourced to ACT which has worsened their conditions and they want to be returned to direct employment.
The protest was still continuing when I left as the light was beginning to fall.
Royal College of Music, Al Quds: I photographed two unrelated protests on Friday 10th July 2015. The first was calling for decent pay and conditions for outsourced workers and the second was the annual Al Quds day march.
IWGB protest at Royal College of Music – Kensington
Outsourced cleaners and other low paid workers at the Royal College of Music immediately south of the Albert Hall in South Kensington belonging to the IWGB were protesting to get similar conditions of sick pay, holidays and pension to workers employed directly by the RCM.
The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain is a registered trade union which organises cleaners, porters, hospitality workers, domestic workers and other precarious workers in a number of sectors. It is a grass-roots union run by and representing mainly low paid migrant workers in London and has proved effective in getting better pay and conditions for these groups of workers who have largely been neglected by the larger traditional unions, who have often seemed more concerned with preserving differentials in pay than in improving the lot of the lowest paid.
The IWGB had called for talks with the RCM management and their employers to discuss their claims, offering to call off the protests if they agreed to this. But the employers had refused to recognise the IWGB or to hold talks with them.
So the IWGB and supporters came and held a noisy protest outside the College entrance, handing out leaflets about why they were protesting to those entering the College for a graduation ceremony. RCM security tried to move them further away where the protest would probably not have been heard inside, but they refused to move, while taking care not to impede those entering or leaving the college.
One woman came out to argue with the protesters, telling them to go away and eventually lost her temper and kicked one of them. The RCM’s head of security quickly led her away. The protest was continuing when I left for my next event.
The annual Al Quds Day march on the last Friday of Ramadan, organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission gathered close to BBC Broadcasting House, marching from there to a rally at the US Embassy, calling for justice and freedom for Palestine.
As I’ve written in previous posts, he celebration of Al Quds Day on the last Friday of Ramadan was introduced by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran 1979 and spread from there to other countries. The march in London is organised by the IHRC which has received some support from the Iranian regime.
As usual, most of the banners and placards and the chanting on the march were calling for freedom for Palestine, and there were many placards against Israeli violence in Gaza and the West Bank, and calling for a boycott of Israel, a movement which seems to be growing in strength.
This year I saw few celebrating Khomeini and fewer Hezbollah flags and badges than in some previous years. As usual the Neturei Karta were prominent with their anti-Zionist placards stating that ‘Authentic Jewry Always Opposed Zionism And the State of “Israel”‘, but I found no evidence for anti-Semitism, which opponents of the march always charge it with.
Perhaps because the march was on a Friday there were fewer Zionists protesting against the march, and I only saw one man who was protected by march stewards and then led away by police. I imagine there would have been more waiting to protest against the march when it reached the US Embassy, but I left before then.
End outsourcing at University of London: Five years ago, on Wednesday 25th April 2018 I was with workers from the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain – IWGB on the first day of a two day strike at the University of London central administration by over 100 cleaners, porters, security officers, receptionists, gardeners, post room staff and audiovisual staff.
They were calling for an end to the outsourcing of their jobs in the university to various contracting companies and demanding to be directly employed by the University, and receive the same conditions and benefits as directly employed colleagues. As well as the workers, academics, students and other trade unionists came to support them in a lively rally outside the gates to Stewart House in Russell Square..
The rally was part of a successful campaign led by the IWGB which began in 2010 and ten years later the university central administration changed to directly employ porters, receptionists, post room and audio visual technicians, with cleaners following shortly after in November 2020.
The IWGB are still campaigning to bring workers in-house in other universities in London, including UCL, and they and other unions have been successful elsewhere. United Voices of the World are one of these and some of their members had come to the rally to show their support.
Cleaners and security staff at universities across London are organising for equality with directly-employed staff!
Outsourced workers suffer from far worse terms and conditions than directly-employed colleagues, facing no sick pay, bare minimum holiday entitlement and meagre pensions. Bullying, mismanagement and discrimination by unaccountable outsourced managers are common.
Workers in the IWGB union are leading the fightback. Through public campaigning and strike action we can end outsourcing at London universities!
Among the speakers at the gates of Senate House was Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell who also brought support from Jeremy Corbyn and promised a Labour government would bring in new trade union laws and end the unfairness of outsourcing. Unfortunately should we now get a Labour government at the next election its policies will be more about protecting company profits than protecting workers.
There were plenty of others as well as IWGB members who spoke, and one was a woman from UCU at Goldsmiths University who had come with a large donation from them to the strike fund.
Billy Bragg came to give his support, singing three songs, and got us joining in on some of them, and Archie Shuttlebrace sang with Rebecca Wade Morris. Chip Hamer (Grim Chip) and another of the poets from Poetry on the Picket Line performed some of their work.
Then it was time for a march around Russell Square, with over 200 people briefly holding up traffic. The march was lead by the yellow Precarious Workers Mobile three-wheeler and a samba band.
They returned to the gates of Stewart House and the rally continued with more music, poetry and dancing.
Ten years ago today, on Wednesday 10th April 2013, I was with cleaners and other outsourced workers at the University of London for a noisy protest at Senate House calling for equal sick pay, holidays and pensions with equivalent workers employed directly by the University – the 3 causes in their continuing ‘3 Cosas Campaign.’
Companies that want to maintain a respectable facade use outsourcing as a way to get workers on the cheap, using contractors to employ them under conditions of service that no respectable employer would use.
Outsourced workers are generally only entitled to the minimum Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), with no payment for the first three days out of work, after which they get the state provision – in 2013 of £85.85 per week in London.
Those who are on the university payroll get considerable extra benefits on top of the SSP, depending on their length of service. A worker who has been in the job for more than five years is eligible for full pay for the first six months of absence, and then a further six months on half pay plus SSP (so long as this total does not exceed their normal pay.) The university can at its discretion increase the period of sick pay in exceptional cases.
Natalie Bennett, then leader of the Green Party, supports the campaign
Holiday entitlement for outsourced works is also usually the statutory minimum of 28 days paid holiday (including bank holidays) but some of the caterers are on ‘zero hour contracts’ which means they get no holiday pay at all. In 2012 when many halls of residence were in use for the Olympics many outsourced staff were prevented from taking any holidays over the summer period.
Those directly employed by the university get an extra 5 to 10 days paid leave, as well as up to six more ‘school closure days, The 3 Cosas campaign wants similar treatment for all workers as well as more flexibilityover when they can take holidays. Many of the outsourced workers have families in South America or Africa, and given the high travel costs in visiting them would like to be able to take longer than two week breaks.
Companies who employ the outsourced workers generally also have far poorer management staff (often also underpaid) who bully staff and often impose quite impossible workloads so that the job is done much less well than it should be. Staff turnover is also often high. We’ve clearly seen the results of this elsewhere in hospitals where outsourcing of cleaning has contributed greatly to the spread of hospital-acquired infections.
Putting services such as cleaning out to contract may immediately cut costs, but doesn’t necessarily mean real long-term savings for organisations. Often it leads to necessary work not getting done which leads to greater costs in the long term, and it always results in lower standards of service. Any savings that are made are at the cost of the low-paid workers; outsourcing should be a badge of shame for any respectable company – and should be made illegal, along with zero hours contracts.
On My London Diary I give a clear description of the protest lead by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), the union which now represents many of the outsourced workers at the university, so I’ll not go through the details again here. But although the IWGB has a majority in many if not most workplaces the University and the outsourced employers refuse to recognise them, and the campaign is also about union recognition.
Immigration, Lions, Low Pay & Child Prisoners. I started my day on Friday 13th March 2015 in Feltham in outer London, outside an Immigration Tribunal before going in to cover three further protests in central London.
Let Ife Stay in the UK! York House Immigration Tribunal, Feltham
Immigration has been very much in the news lately, with the UK government introducing new legislation to attempt to evade its responsibilities under international obligations over the treatment of refugees, demonising those who have genuine asylum claims as “illegal” and refusing them the opportunity to make claims.
For years both our major political parties have vied with each other to produce more and more draconian measures to cut the number of migrants coming to the UK. A part of this has been the setting up of more and more Byzantine and understaffed systems to slow down the processing of claims by the Home Office. More and more people are kept in limbo for years before eventually being granted leave to stay in this country.
It’s our system that has led to the huge growth of people smugglers, at first using lorries and more recently concentrating on channel crossings in unsafe and expendable small boats.
Some of the petition to keep Ife and her family in the UK
The real basis for this trade is that there are no safe routes that most genuine asylum seekers can take to enter this country. Even the few country-specific schemes we have are not working properly. Were we to set up a system that worked fairly and efficiently it would largely put the people smugglers out of business, perhaps cutting the demand for their services by around three-quarters.
Setting up a system that rapidly – perhaps within 28 days – sorted out those with a probable case for asylum from those who were clearly economic migrants would not be difficult, and we could admit those who are likely in the end to be given asylum on a provisional basis, allowing them to work and contribute to our society while their cases were under more detailed scrutiny.
Lineker’s tweet “This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the ’30s” was simply stating facts. It certainly is immeasurably cruel, and listening to speeches by Tory MPs and ministers both in Parliament and in media interviews we largely hear a complete lack of compassion from people claiming to be “compassionate“.
Perhaps it might have been politically more acceptable to call it something like Orwellian double-think but government policy often seems to be very accurately following the well-known quote “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” And I probably don’t need to tell you who said that.
Obviously we should not refer to “invasions” or define people’s actions as illegal when their activities are legal under international law, and certainly even people breaking laws are not themselves illegal.
I didn’t know there was an Immigration Tribunal in Feltham before the protest here, rather hidden away on a small industrial estate a mile or two south of Heathrow. And clearly the staff working there didn’t want people to know, and attempted to get police to stop the protest – but were told by police it was legal. It wasn’t a big protest, calling for a 2 year old Ife and her mother and brotheer to be allowed to stay in Peckham where the Ife and continue the medical treatment she needs rather than be deported to Nigeria. You can read more about the protest at Let Ife Stay in the UK!
Save Our Lions – ban Canned Hunting – Trafalgar Square
It took me a little over an hour to travel by bus, train and tube to Trafalgar Square where I joined (a little late) several hundred people who were there to protest against ‘canned hunting’, where lions are bred and raised tame on farms in South Africa for rich visitors to pet, to ‘walk with lions’ and to shoot as trophy heads.
It’s a sordid business, degrading noble animals and threatening wild lions which are captured for farm breeding to improve the quality of the stock. Young females are often killed as soon as they have got too large for the petting zoos, as females are in little demand as hunting trophies.
After some speeches on the North Terrace I was invited to go across with a couple of protesters to South Africa House, where I took a few pictures as they posed in the entrance before security told us to leave.
Poverty pay at the Royal College of Art – RCA, Kensington Gore
IWGB members, supported by students, protested noisily at the Royal College of Art against low pay of outsourced workers, demanding they be paid the London Living Wage now, not from September as the college has offered; the workers need it now.
This was a noisy protest with trade union members and students banging on drums, whistling, blowing plastic horns and chanting slogans, mainly “Living Wage Now!” with RCA security and a couple of police looking on.
After protesting at the entrance to the RCA for some time they marched out on to the main road and held a short rally at the end of the college building close to the Albert Hall before going on a further noisy protest at a small enclosed yard next to a college dining area.
Finally I went to Victoria Street where protesters on the wide pavement outside the G4S offices were calling or the release of 5 young boys from Hares, held and tortured in Israeli jails which G4S helps to run.
They were arrested two years ago after they had been accused of throwing stones at an incident when an illegal settler crashed into the back of a truck. If they are ever tried, like most Palestinians in Israeli courts they are likely to be found guilty – even if there is little or no real evidence and could be sentenced to over 25 years in jail.
The protesters also called for the release of other Palestinian child prisoners, handing out leaflets and displaying banners which detailed some of the cases and the torture of children often tortured and held in isolation in small dark cells in the prisons for which G4S provides support.
Ten years ago on Saturday 2nd February 2013 I went to Enfield to photograph a march against the planned closure of A&E and maternity services at Chase Farm Hospital there. I left the march to travel into central London for a protest by cleaners outside the Barbican Centre.
Save Chase Farm Hospital – Enfield
The march in Enfield took place a week after a massive march in South London against the closures at Lewisham hospital, but the march in Enfield was a rather smaller affair, with just a few hundred taking part.
Tory politicians including David Cameron, Andrew Lansley and Nick de Bois, by the time of this march Prime Minister, Health Secretary and local MP respectively, had visited the hospital in 2007 and pledged support for stopping closure of A&E and maternity services at Chase Farm.
Their promises turned out to be worthless once the Tory party had come to government and de Bois elected, plans for the closures were approved by Andrew Lansley in September 2011 and were due to come into force in November 2013.
But the local fight against closure had continued, now led by the North East London Council of Action, with daily pickets outside the hospital where the units are due to close this November. The march was also supported by the Save Chase Farm campaign and the London Fire Brigade Union as well as Unison and there were people with a banner from another North London hospital, the Whittington Hospital at Archway, where vigorous local protest stopped closures of A&E and maternity a few years ago, but where the management is again proposing cuts.
The hospital was then run by the Barnet and Chase Farm NHS Hospital Trust which included Barnet and North Middlesex hospitals who intended to spend £35million to expand A&E and maternity services at Barnet to replace those at Chase Farm and to make a £80million refurbishment of the 1970s Tower Block at the North Middlesex.
Around two hundred people gathered at the war memorial on Chase Green where there were some folk songs before the march set off to Enfield town centre, where many local shoppers showed their support.
The march then continued on its way to the hospital, with some of those taking part chanting ‘Occupy Now’. I had to leave them before they reached the hospital as I had promised to go to the Barbican, but later heard that a small group had occupied a part of one building and were evicted around 10pm that evening.
Despite the protests and an unsuccessful legal bid by Enfield Council to postpone the changes the Maternity Unit closed on 20th November 2013 and the Accident and Emergency Department on 9th December 2013. The closure remained controversial and although a Healthwatch Enfield report found no evidence that the closure of A&E had an adverse effect on Enfield residents ability to access emergency services, it was unconvincing, partly because of the failure of the three hospitals to provide adequate data.
Cleaners Protest at Barbican, Barbican Arts Centre – City of London
The Industrial Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) which represented the Barbican cleaners had declared an official dispute at the Barbican Centre in November 2012 and this was the latest in a series of protests.
The cleaners were protesting for the London Living Wage and also against unfair treatment and a union ban by cleaning contractor MITIE.
Although the City of London Corporation which owns the Barbican Centre has come out in support of the London Living Wage and pays all its workers at or above this, it is happy to outsource the cleaning to MITIE, a large and highly profitable company paying its CEO over a million pounds a year but with the cleaners on only £6.90 an hour, around one fifth less than the then London Living Wage of £8.55.
MITIE responded to the union claims with a letter to employees including “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. We appreciate that many sites, where our employees undertake work for our clients, are open to public access, but no member of IWGB should discuss union business with any MITIE employee during their working hours or on premises within which they are employed.“
Despite this a spokesman for the City of London Corporation who are the owners of the Barbican denied in a post of Facebook that there is any ban on the union at the centre.
The protest took place outside the main entrance to the Barbican Arts Centre, with the protesters careful to leave room for people wanting to enter or leave the building. As well as making a loud noise with drumming, air horns and whistles they also shouted slogans, both in English and in Spanish, the first language of many of the cleaners.
There were also speeched, and one of the Barbican cleaners spoke about the low wages and poor working conditions, and the feeling by cleaners that they are treated like dirt rather than given the respect due to any person. He told how his pregnant wife had been forced to work with chemicals that were known to be dangerous for pregnant women, risking a miscarriage, despite her complaints. MITIE had failed to discipline the manager responsible in any way. Fortunately despite the exposure, his wife had given birth to a healthy child.
The protest was still continuing as I left for home and I could still hear the noise they were making – though faintly – as I reached Moorgate station, almost a quarter of a mile away despite the tall buildings lining the streets. It was a peaceful protest but one determined to be noticed and to make its complaints heard, something which the government has now made illegal.
On Thursday 25th January 2018 I went out to photograph one protest in the evening and found myself getting transported to another by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain.
End Outsourcing at University of London – Senate House
Striking security officers and receptionists from the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain picketed Senate House and were joined by supporters for a noisy rally at the gates. Cleaners, receptionists, security officers, porters and post room staff are all demanding that the university ends discriminatory employment practices and makes them all direct employees.
Outsourcing is a way for organisations like the University of London to get essential jobs done on the cheap by people working under terms and conditions that would be a blot on their reputations as responsible employers. They contract out the people who work in their business to contracting companies who employ them under far worse pensions, holiday entitlements, sickness entitlements, and maternity and paternity leave than in-house employees.
Those working at the UoL say they are often bullied and overworked and sometimes paid several months late. Many are also on zero hours contracts, which fail to offer them consistent work, and have no guarantee that they will get any work, and and can be used to further bully or punish workers, often those who are active in the unions. Following earlier protests the University is considering bringing some of the workers in-house, but they and their union, the IWGB, were insisting that all should be put onto the university payroll. The savings from outsourcing are often illusory and organisations always get better service through direct employment.
The workers had been on strike all day and had been picketing and in the early evening were joined by a large and noisy crowd of supporters, including IWGB member from other workplaces and students, including a samba band who considerably livened up the protest.
IWGB President Henry Chango Lopez
After the band had played for some time there were speeches from some leading members of the union including IWGB President Henry Chango Lopez and others who came to give support including United Voices of the World General Secretary Petros Elia. He was able to give news of another campaigning success, where after a noisy protest outside its offices by the UVW in the previous month another company had agreed to pay cleaners the London Living Wage.
United Voices of the World General Secretary Petros Elia
As the protest drew to an end IWGB General Secretary Jason Moyer-Lee announced that a double-decker coach had arrived and would take IWGB members and any more they could fit in to a surprise protest at another secret London location. Although I was rather cold, tired and hungry it was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.
Cleaners rush into Royal College of Music – Royal College of Music
Unloading the bus
We crowded into the bus which drove off into the London rush hour, and it was soon clear we were going west. We passed the Royal Albert Hall and then turned off into a side street a short way from our destination, which turned out to be the Royal College of Music.
People got off and unloaded the union flags, banners and drums quietly. Then two people went a little ahead of the rest of us to hold open the doors of the RCM ready for the rest of the crowd to rush into the foyer for a surprise protest.
Cleaners there had recently been taken over as the RCM had agreed a new contract with a different company, Tenon FM. They had decided to unilaterally cut hours in half and change shift times, telling the cleaners they must work at times most already have other cleaning jobs, and they are now threatened with dismissal for refusing to accept the new hours.
Both Tenon and the RCM were refusing to hold any discussions over the changes with the IWGB, who had because of this launched a collective grievance and balloted the cleaners for strike action; the union was also considering a legal challenge under law governing the transfer of undertakings.
Inside the foyer the protesters waved IWGB union flags and placards, banged drums and shouted slogans but were careful to avoid any damage. THe RCM called the police who arrived after 12 minutes and ordered the protesters to leave. They did so and continued the protest on the pavement outside. It was a dark street and the blue flashing lights of the police cars made photography challenging.
I continued to photograph for a few minutes and then decided I had taken enough pictures and little else was likely to happen. I was already very late for dinner and had a longer than expected journey home.
