Ministry of Justice cleaners protest: On Thursday 9th August 2018 United Voices of the World (UVW) cleaners and supporters celebrated the end of their 3-day strike with a rally outside the Ministry of Justice in Petty France with a lively protest despite pouring rain.
Cleaners from the UVW had also been taking part in the 3-day strike at Kensington & Chelsea Council and hospitals and outpatient clinics in London run by Health Care America. They were all demanding the London living wage and better conditions of employment.
I’d been with them a couple of days earlier at Kensington Town Hall where, after the council had withdrawn a promise made to the cleaners earlier in the day to take them into direct employment, they interrupted a council planning committee public meeting to state their case.
The cleaners and supporters left the council offices then after they had been promised further talks the following morning, but their strike continued.
All these cleaners – like many others across the country – are not employed by the companies and organisations whose premises they clean. Instead the cleaning is outsourced to contracting companies who generally pay the minimum wage and fail to provide the kind of sick pay, pensions and other conditions of service that directly employed workers normally get. Often they are bullied by management and not treated with the dignity and respect we all deserve.
It was raining as the protesters gathered outside the Ministry of Justice, but there was a yard or so of shelter at the front of the overhanging building where people lined up with banners. But soon it was really pouring down and everybody was getting wet.
Among those coming to support the UVW were another union which fights for low-paid workers, the Independent Workers Union, IWGB, Class War and other trade unionists.
Austin Hearney of the PCS came out to give support from his members working in the Ministry of Justice, and Shadow Justice minister Richard Burgon arrived to give the Labour Party’s support.
Workers were entering and leaving the building for lunch, and most took the flyers the protesters were offering with some expressing support, though a few seemed to be angered by the protest.
At one point when people were getting really wet, Petros Elia, co-founder and General Secretary of the UVW tried to lead the protesters into the building, but was stopped by security and police officers and the protest continued in driving rain.
I was getting very wet, and my cameras too. One of the protesters kindly held an umbrella over me for some minutes so I could continue to work. While there was space for some protesters to keep out of the worst of the rain, I had to stand in it to photograph them.
The rain eased off a little towards the end of the protest and people moved further out into the street – most of them were pretty wet already.
The had brought a pink pinata, a pig labelled with the initials of employers RBKC and MoJ and began hitting it with folded umbrellas and fists until it burst open releasing its multi-coloured contents onto the pavement.
There were celebrations and several coloured flares were set off, though the effect was rather dampened by the rain. There were more speeches and more flares and poetry from one of the Poetry on the Picket Line.
By no the rain had stopped and the protesters were dancing on the pavement and in the road as the protest came to an end.
Many more pictures on My London Diary at Ministry of Justice cleaners protest.
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