Tag: pay and conditions

Scrooge Debenhams & Bikelife – 2018

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.

More pictures

London Bike Life

Oxford St

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.

London Bike Life

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Class War Visit The Rees-Moggs – 2018

On Tuesday 11th September 2018 I accompanied Class War as they enacted a short theatrical protest outside the Westminster home of Jacob Rees-Mogg. I think it rather amused Rees-Mogg, who deliberately brought out his family and nurse to take part in it, later milking the event for every last ounce of publicity he could. I was impressed by his performance.

Class War had come to call for the release of Rees-Mogg’s nanny, Veronica Cook, who they say ceased to exist as an independent human 50 years ago and has been subsumed into the Mogg family as if she was being confined in the tower of a gothic mansion.

The playlet involved only six protesters, with Ian Bone as himself wearing a cloth cap, former Class War Westminster candidate Adam Clifford as an impressive Jacob Rees-Mogg, Jane Nicholl as a more fetching Nanny Crook and a giant penis, though this had problems in getting inflated and missed much of the action.

I’d met Class War in a nearby pub, where the performers put on their costumes and then walked along the street to the Mogg house. The performance had been advertised in advance, and family and security were waiting when they arrived and police had a short converstation with Class War who assured them that this would be an entirely peaceful event and there was no intention to cause any damage.

Jacob Rees-Mogg then strode out to meet the protesters, who were not really ready, just finishing unrolling their banner. A loud discussion started, with him being questioned about his nanny and how much she was paid but with him simply welcoming the protesters and refusing to answer. And in the background behind me the woman wearing the inflatable giant penis costume was struggling to get it erected.

After a minute or two, Rees-Mogg was joined by his wife and eldest son, and shortly after the whole family was there with Nanny Crook carrying the baby which she handed to his father. The two elder boys in particular were clearly very interested in what was going on, and at no point in the event did they seem particularly upset in any way.

Ian Bone continued to loudly question Mr Rees-Mogg about the pay and conditions of Nanny Crook, repeating his questions as he failed to answer. After some time he invited Nanny Crook to speak and she told the protesters that she was very happy with the arrangements, though she did not answer about what these were.

They made Nanny an offer of escape, telling her she is paid at below the minimum wage, calling Rees-Mogg a “Slave Owner – The Leopold of the Mendips” and also suggested that she joined a trade union, offering her membership of the UVW. She only smiled, and her employer made clear that she had no interest in the offer of trade union membership.

When nanny pulled down the blind the oldest son went upstairs to watch

At one point Bone turned towards the elder of the boys watching the performance, telling him loudly that a lot of people didn’t like his daddy and giving some reasons for this at some length. One of the protesters captured this on a video which was posted on social media and led to a national outcry from press and TV channels.

While another squeezed in front of the blind

One other journalist had arrived to photograph the event alongside me, and he rushed off to file his pictures which were widely used. I accompanied Class War back to the pub and only filed work later. One picture editor of a major national newspaper later told me he had failed to find my pictures as he searched for “Mogg” but I had used the keyword “Rees-Mogg” among those on my pictures.

Finally the giant penis joins the other protesters

I’d also filed a report of the event, but that was never even quoted, and I was never contacted by the media for my comments, nor I think was the other journalist. Our accounts would have totally contradicted the headlines used about Class War “ambushing” the family, which was simply a media smear.

As I comment on My London Diary:

“Jacob Rees-Mogg and his family were willing participants in what happened in front of their home. Their children did not seem upset, more fascinated with what was happening – and after they had been taken inside and the protest continued had to be dragged away from the windows. One made his way upstairs to continue to watch without being prevented from doing so. Almost all of the media commentary was a deliberate total misrepresentation of what had taken place.”

Class War watch their video in the pub before they upload it

Both Rees-Mogg and Class War revelled in the publicity they got from the event, with Ian Bone being labelled by one opinated right-wing radio show host as “foul-mouthed” for telling the interviewer he was talking “bollocks” when he raved and blustered at the remarkably level-headed, clear and accurate acount Bone gave of the event. I felt he should have added the word ‘absoute’ in front of it but otherwise it was hard to fault.

More at Class War visit the Rees-Moggs.