‘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.
