Shaker, Job Centres, Firefighters, Tube, Lambeth – On Wednesday 25th February I photographed a number of protests in London, starting in Westminster with the Free Shaker Aamer campaign, striking firefighters and welfare rights activists, then with tube workers at Edgware Road and finally outside Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton.
Free Shaker Aamer – Parliament Square
A protest opposite Parliament called for the urgent release of London resident Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo, where he has been held and regularly abused for 13 years without charge or trial.
The Free Shaker Aamer Campaign had been holding weekly protests opposite Parliament whenever it was in session to remind government of the need for act over his release. He had long been cleared for release but was still held in the illegal prison camp with both US and UK governments dragging their feet as his testimony would be embarrassing to their security agencies, making clear their involvement in torture.
The protest was longer than usual as an international event was taking place at the nearby QEII centre and they wanted to remind delegates there of Shaker’s torture and imprisonment. Eventually the long campaign of protests by this and other groups led the UK government they needed to back his release in practice and he was finally released on 30th October 2015.
Firefighters in England held a 24 hour strike on 25th Feb 2015 against the unworkable pension scheme the government intended to implement. They say that the devolved governments had recognised the problems in the scheme and made improvements but in England government ministers were refusing to talk with the union, simply ignoring requests for meetings. They accused the government of lies about the union, saying they were being labelled as militants despite them being ready and willing to enter into negotiations at any time.
After a rally in Westminster Central Hall, several thousand striking firefighters protested on the street outside Parliament before marching to Downing St. Their protest brought all traffic in the area to a standstill until they marched away.
They stopped outside Downing Street and refused to move, saying they would wait there until someone came out to talk to them. A senior police officer come to talk with Matt Wrack and the other FBU leaders there and was extrememly politie, taking Wrack’s mobile number before going away to see if anyone could be persuaded to come out from Downing St to meet the protesters.
I left them leaning on the barriers and looking into Downing Street waiting for someone to come and see them, though I doubted if anyone would ever emerge.
The Fire Service has also suffered like other public services from government cuts; in London these led to Mayor Boris Johnson making dangerous reductions, closing some fire stations and reducing equipment and staffing, which left the London Fire Brigade ill-equipped to deal with major disasters such as the Grenfell fire.
The FBU union later won a number of legal cases against the government over the changes that were made to the pensions scheme, leading to significant compensation for some members.
Welfare activists protested outside the Dept of Work & Pensions in Caxton Street as a part of the national day of action over the arrest of welfare rights activist Tony Cox. He had been arrested when he tried to accompany a vulnerable claimant to her job centre interview to argue for a fairer claimant agreement.
As well as several banners, one man was gagged in protest. By law claimants are allowed to have and adviser present with them at the interview, but when a claimant turned up with Cox, his interview was cancelled.
Cox and the claimant then left the job centre, but later in the day police arrived at his him and arrested him, charging him with threatening behaviour.
RMT protest Underground Job Cuts – Edgware Road Station (Bakerloo)
Around 20 RMT members handed out fliers at the busy Edgware Road Bakerloo Line station against the proposed 50% cut in station staffing and the closure of the ticket offices which they say will endanger the safety of both passengers and staff.
They got a very positive reception from many of the public going in and out of the station or walking past, although a PCSO came to harass and try to stop their picketing. Most of the public seemed to realise that staff do far more than sell tickets and offer service and protection to the travelling public.
Many promises were made to Underground staff and the public about how they would be protected when cuts were made, but most were later broken.
Lambeth against £90m cuts – Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton
After taking some photographs of the protesting RMT staff I got on the Underground there, changing at Oxford Circus to take me to the end of the Victoria Line at Brixton.
There I walked down to Lambeth Town Hall on the corner of Acre Land to join around a hundred trade unionists, pensioners, library and other council staff, social housing tenants and other residents who were gathering for a lively rally outside Lambeth Town Hall.
A lively rally took place urging councillors who were arriving for the council meeting to reject library closures and other £90 millon cuts which were being passed there by the large Labour majority on the council. Labour then held 59 of the 63 council seats. Among the speakers at the rally was the only Green Party councillor, Scott Ainslie, who was to vote against the cuts. The Green Party gained four more seats in the 2018 council elections but lost three of these in 2022. Right-wing Labour councillors still have an overwheming majority and the council continues its policies which fail the community.
Lambeth’s finances were stretched by the development of a new Town Hall or Civic Centre the cost of which roughly doubled from the original contract of £55 million ot £104 million. Policies such as the closure of libraries and the demolition and sale of popular and well-built council estates like Cressingham Gardens had already produced a great deal of protest in the borough.
The £90 million cuts passed at the council meeting later that evening have had a disproportionate impact on children, old people and the disabled who always rely on local services more than the average person. Council employees at the rally opposed the cuts not only because they feared for their own jobs, but because they knew those that remain in post will not be able to offer the public the same quality of service that they do at present.
TUC Pensions March & Corporate Greed – On Wednesday 30th November 2011 public sector workers across the country held a one-day strike against government plans to cut public service pensions with pickets at thousands of workplaces and rallies and marches in towns and cities across the country as well as a South East TUC organised march in Central London which I photographed. Later in the afternoon I went with Occupy London protesters who occupied the offices of the highest paid CEO in the UK to protest against corporate greed.
TUC Nov 30 March – Lincolns Inn Fields to Westminster
It’s always hard to estimate the numbers on very large marches such as this one but it was very large and when I arrived at Lincoln’s Inn Fields the large space already seemed pretty crowded an hour before the march was due to start. Many people gave up trying to get in waited to join the march on Kingsway.
At the front of the march were Frances O’Grady, Deputy General Secretary of the TUC, NASUWT president John Rimmer (below) and other trade unionists. Many other groups had come with banners.
There were many placards suggesting ways to avoid the cuts, including by taxing the mega-rich and cutting the pointless and wasteful expenditure on Trident rather than job’s health and education.
Peter Tatchell
Some of the students on the march felt it was going to slow and began to march in front of the main banner.
Police stopped them and held up the whole of the march at Aldwych but then didn’t seem to know what to do. Eventually they just let things go ahead.
I took a lot of pictures of the Education Activist Network who were the liveliest part of the protest but there were plenty of others to photograph too with many interesting hand-made posters.
I stopped for quite a while to photograph marchers as they went past.
and they were still coming in large numbers an hour after the front of the march had passed me.
I was still on the Embankment with marchers when the rally had begun closer to Parliament and people were still rolling in. I think there were probably between 20 and 30,000 taking part, but it was hard to know and I think many who had been on picket lines early in the morning had left before the rally began. I left too to meet with people from Occupy London.
Occupy London Expose Corporate Greed – Piccadilly Circus & Panton House
Occupy London had called people to meet at Piccadilly Circus at 3pm but had not indicated what would be happening next. I arrived to find around a hundred protesters there along with quite a few Greek football supporters and a large number of police standing around watching them.
We stood in the intermittent rain for around half an hour waiting for something to happen. At 3.30pm around 30 people rushed across the road to stand outside a branch of Boots with the ‘Precarious Workers Brigade’ banner, but made no attempt to enter the store which quickly lowered its metal shutters.
Police rushed across the street to surround them, but soon became clear that this had merely been a diversion, as others close to Eros unfolded their long main ‘All Power to the 99%’ banner and rushed down Haymarket with it catching the police by surprise and leaving them behind.
I was running ahead of them, taking pictures over my shoulder and managing to keep ahead, but the police were well behind as we reached Panton St.
Here the protesters set off a bright orange flare, turned down Panton Street and rushed into Panton House. I followed the group with the main banner inside, but stupidly stopped in the foyer to take pictures through the glass frontage of the flares outside.
I was a little behind as the protesters ran up the stairs and rather out of breath after running along the street. By the time I reached the third or fourth landing I had decided to give up and pressed the button for a lift. Police arrived just as the lift came and one officer grabbed me stopping me from getting in.
Police told us all to go downstairs, but around 20 of the protesters and a few press had reached the roof. I made my way down, though it was difficult as more police rushing up pushed those of us going down out of the way.
The police had now surrounded the entrance, preventing any more people entering, but were allowing us to go out. I was pleased to get out because the air inside had been thick with the orange smoke and I had been choking slightly, Smoke flares aren’t intended for indoor use.
A little back on Haymarket by the side of the building protesters outside were taking part in a mike chat group chant to inform passers-by what was going on. From this I learnt that Panton House contains the London offices of the mining company Xstrata, whose CEO Mick Davies they say is the highest paid CEO in the UK, and “is a prime example of the greedy 1% lining their own pockets while denying workers pensions.”
Police began to surround them and I quickly moved away as they kettled the protesters, and also to get a better view of what was happening on the roof. TI had missed seeing the ‘All Power to the 99%’ banner being let down over Haymarket earlier but saw them trying to do so again but being dragged away from the edge. More police vans were now arriving and I decided there would be little else I could see and left.
Climate, Pay & Pensions – Friday 29th November 2019 was ‘Black Friday’ for some but for others it was ‘Buy Nothing Day’ and Climate Strike students were on the march, while separately University lecturers and others in the UCU along with students and other supporters were marching to Parliament in support of their 8 day strike over pensions, pay and conditions.
Youth Climate Strike March
Over a thousand mainly school students met in Parliament Square to demand the government and other governments world-wide take urgent action to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.
They demanded a Green New Deal to save their future and for the school curriculum to make clear the urgent need for changes in attitudes and action.
Of course their protest fell on deaf ears in the Tory government, and although it did seem for some time that the Labour opposition was beginning to think seriously about the environmental crisis, as it seems more likely they might get into power their climate polices for a https://www.labourgnd.uk/gnd-explained Green New Deal are rapidly being abandoned and it now seems they are “unlikely to meet its £28bn green pledge at all.”
Well over a thousand marched up Whitehall and on through Trafalgar Square to Regent Street, intending to go to Oxford Street on ‘Buy Nothing Day’, but police stopped them on Regent Street and diverted them into Mayfair and eventually back to Whitehall and Parliament Square.
Earlier they had been met by a group of XR’s ‘Red Brigade’ mimes who had come to salute the student march.
The UCU march from London University was on the 4th day of their 8 day strike over pensions, pay and conditions and in solidarity with the Youth Climate Strike also taking place in London the same day.
Some had been on the picket lines since the early morning before the march began in Malet Street.
I saw the march as I came back from Regent Street where I had left the student march as I came on to the North Terrace of Trafalgar Square, and ran down to catch up with the front of the march on Whitehall, close to Downing St.
The march stopped there for some time, lining the road opposite the entrance to Downing St and shouting towards it, before moving on towards Parliament.
As well as their call for proper working conditions and better pay many of the marchers also came calling for changes in what is taught and with posters and placards about climate change. Some had already marched to support the students.
They then marched on to Parliament Square, where I left them as they moved towards a rally.
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.
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.
On Wednesday 31st March 2010 I reported on three unrelated protests in London.
Ford/Visteon Workers March For Pension Justice
In 2000 Ford when split of some of its parts factories to Visteon, a company described as ‘An Enterprise of Ford Motor Company’ and initially with the same shareholders, promising the workers their conditions and pensions would remain exactly the same as they had been with Ford. Ford’s assurances were repeated by Visteon.
But in 2009 Visteon closed down and workers in their factories in Belfast, Enfield, Swansea and Basildon were given just six minutes to leave the sites. In Belfast and Enfield workers refused and occupied the sites for a month, but were let down by their union, Unite who failed to give them support. The occupations eventually forced Visteon/Ford to pay the redundancy pay they were entitled to under their agreements, but pensions were not covered and they only received the lesser amounts covered by Pension Protection Fund compensation.
Since then their fight for the pensions they were promised has continued. I met around 500 former Visteon workers outside the Unite Offices in Theobalds Road, Holborn, where many wore hats and t-shirts with the Ford logo, but with the name replaced by the word ‘Fraud’, which succinctly expressed their view of the company’s action.
I marched with them to Downing Street where they had problems in delivering a letter and petition. As I commented then: “it does now seem unnecessarily complicated and difficult to get access to our elected government, hiding away behind their tall gates and high security. Its both an expression of and doubtless fuels their paranoia over terrorism far in excess of the real threat.”
The marchers then went on to a rally in Parliament Square.
Their fight for a fair deal over their pensions went on for another four years, when eventually as the case was about to go to the High Court, Ford agreed to top up the Pension Protection Fund compensation so that they would receive the full value of benefits accrued when working for Ford. It didn’t cover the nine years they had worked for Visteon, but Unite recommended acceptance as it would settle the claim without the expense (and possible failure) of a court hearing.
Ethiopians Protest Bloodthirsty Tyrant – Downing St
Ethiopians came from across the UK to for a day of demonstration opposite Downing St where Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was co-chairing the UN climate finance group. They demanded the UK stop appeasing the Ethiopian dictator, and calling for the release of opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa and other political prisoners in Ethiopia.
Zenawi who became chair of one of the leading military groups fighting in the Ethiopian Civil War was the leader of a coalition that took power in 1991, becoming President then and was Prime Minister from 1995 until is death in 2012. His control of the military made Ethiopia an effective one-party state.
Although the country formally has democratic organisation and elections, elections have been rigged and oppostion politicians jailed, notably the leader of the main opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) party, Mideksa (or Midekssa), a former judge. Many other politicians and journalists have also been jailed and in 2007 the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) named the country as “the world’s worst backslider on press freedom over the previous five years.”
Human rights violations and corruption are rife in Ethiopia, and food aid, education and jobs all depend on membership of the ruling party. His opponents regard Zenawi as a bloodthirsty tyrant and call for him to be brought to trial at the ICC at The Hague on charges of genocide. Human Rights Watch (HRW) have accused it of war crimes in the Somali regions of Ethiopia and against the Anauk communities in Gambella in 2003-4. Human rights abuses have continued in Ethiopia since Zenawi’s death.
Ethiopia is one of the larger countries in Africa and has received large amounts of development aid and humanitarian support from the USA and the UK.
Rioters United! 20 Years Since the Poll Tax Riots – Trafalgar Square,
The largest protest against Margaret Thatcher’s Poll Tax was in central London on Saturday 31 March 1990, shortly before the tax was due to come into force. Unfortunately I had missed that event, probably deciding it was best to keep out of trouble. Back in 1990 I was photographing relatively few protests, mainly concentrating on urban landscapes and culture.
Around 30 people turned up for a rally to commemorate the occasion when “the London mob who brought Thatcher down … as well as to promise that the mob were still in business and to pronounce sentence on politicians.”
The ‘Carnival of Death‘ they were promising was not of course a literal death threat, but street theatre in which the effigies of George Brown, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Nick Griffin were to be executed at a May Day Party. As Chris Knight reminded the gathering, “the only good politician, the only honest politician is a dead politician.”
Our police often fail to understand the difference between rhetoric and reality, and protests involving anarchist groups such as Class War are often ridiculously over-policed, sometimes with disastrous consequences, but almost always provoking more violence than they prevent. On April 1st 2009 for the G20 – Financial Fools Day they had turned up with squads of riot police psyched up to batter largely innocent and joyful protesters – and one of the police killed a newspaper seller simply walking home through the area.
So in my account of this event in Trafalgar Square I was at pains to tell them that the ‘Carnival Of Death’ was “called a carnival; if you want to take part, come ready to dance.”
Shortly after people began the commemoration, a PCSO came to tell those taking part they were not allowed to hold protests or other events in Trafalgar Square without permission. When he was laughed at, he brought over a Heritage Warden who told us the Square was the property of the GLA (Greater London Authority), and that permission was needed for events.
“Fine” said those present. “The GLA is a public body; we own it, this is a public place and we give ourselves permission and intend to continue.” As I pointed out in my account, Trafalgar Square is not just a public place, but one that since its building in the 1830s has been a traditional place for demonstrating radical dissent. It was a tradition that those present were determined to continue.
Fortunately the dozen or so police who arrived shortly after the PCSO had phoned to call for reinforcement simply stood and watched and had enough sense not to try and stop the commemoration, which ended after around 30 minutes when the organisers decided it was time to go down the pub.
At the end of the event, copies of an anti-Election manifesto and a suitably defaced poster showing the leaders of the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and BNP leaders were distributed by the Whitechapel Anarchist Group. They advised us to “Use your cross wisely”, under a picture of the four leaders in the cross-hairs of a gun sight, and attached to the bottom was a ‘Free Gift’ – a safety match, with the message ” Burn Your Ballot”.
As they wrote: “It’s time to end the unjust, corrupt system of terror and build a fair, equal society that will benefit the majority. We all know voting doesn’t change anything and our collective apathy allows this folly to continue. It’s time for REAL change. It’s time for revolution.”
LSE Cleaners Protest, Police Arrest Lisa: On Wednesday 15th March 2017, students and supporters joined cleaners on the picket line at the London School of Economics for a lunchtime rally on the first day of the 2 day strike by members of United Voices of the World union.
Cleaners at the LSE have felt let down by management at least since January 2012 when the contractor who the LSE had outsourced them to cut their hours and was bullying them into signing new contracts.
As I wrote back then, “Outsourcing – as doubtless research by the LSE will have shown – almost invariably leads to lower wages and poorer working conditions for the staff involved. And although the cuts and alleged bullying is being carried out by Resource Group, the responsibility for it must lie with the LSE who are responsible for the contract with them.”
David Graeber (right) at the protest
In September 2016 the cleaners with the United Voices of the World trade union launched a new campaign for parity of treatment with other workers at the university with a meeting which was a part of the LSE’s 3-day ‘Resist’ Festival organised by LSE research fellow Lisa McKenzie which had featured talks and debates often critical of the LSE, with contributions by LSE Professor of Anthropology David Graeber and Martin Wright of Class War and in particular a damning indictment by Simon Elmer of Architects for Social Housing (ASH) of a report by a group of LSE academics on the redevelopment of the Ferrier Estate, deliberately run-down, demonised and emptied by Greenwich Council from 1999 onwards, as Kidbrooke Village.
Protesters walk into the estates office foyer
The protest on 15th March 2017 began with a rally on the LSE campus demanding equal sick pay, holidays and pensions etc to similar workers directly employed by the LSE and an end to bullying and discrimination by their employer Noonan.
Grim Chip of Poetry on the Picket Line performed and there were several speeches by UVW members including LSE cleaner Mildred Simpson.
Dvid Graeber and Petros Eila
The protesters then marched the short distance across Kingsway to the LSE Estates Division where cleaning contractors Noonan have their LSE office. They walked in and occupied the foyer there for over and hour, only leaving after being promised that Allan Blair LSE Director of Facilities Management would talk with the cleaners union the United Voices of the World.
As they left the foyer, police jostled some of them before assaulting and arresting LSE academic Lisa McKenzie, charging her with assault and then bundling her into a waiting police van.
Apparently the receptionist at the estates office had complained that she had been assaulted by McKenzie as the four people holding the UVW banner pushed past her on their way into the office. I had been following close behind them and neither I nor the other protesters had seen any evidence of assault.
None of the other three holding the banner were arrested and it seemed fairly clear that the arrest was not for any offence. Perhaps the police were still aggrieved after a case against her when she was wrongly charged for three offences at a protest in Febnuary 2015 was thrown out of court. That had taken place at the time she was standing in the General Election against Iain Duncan Smith and was an arrest that appeared clearly politically motivated.
But on this occasion it could well have been that the LSE management had pointed her out as a trouble-maker. McKenzie, a working class academic and author of a highly acclaimed study of class and culture on the Nottingham estate where she lived for more than 20 years has been the a subject of constant criticism from others both inside the LSE and in the wider academic community, and when her contract there came to an end it was not renewed.
The protesters were left angry and confused. Why was Lisa being picked on? The protesters felt it must be politically motivated and it was difficult to see any other reason. I think she was later released without charge, possibly because there was CCTV evidence that showed there was no case to answer.
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.
Ten years ago today, on Wednesday 28th November 2012, I photographed two protests at London University. The first at UCL against their plans for a new campus in Stratford and the second by outsourced workers at the University demanding decent conditions of employment.
Save Carpenters Estate from UCL – University College. Wednesday 28th November 2012
Joe from CARP talks to one of those attending the UCL council meeting
University College was founded in 1826 as London University, a secular alternative to the highly religious ancient institutions at Oxford and Cambridge. It bought an 8 acre area of waste land in Bloomsbury, just south of the Euston Road, and developed its elegant buildings around a large quadrangle. Although started in 1827, these were only finally completed in 1955.
What had seemed a very large site when they started now with many more students seems very restrictive, and in October 2012 UCL announced it had come to an agreement with Newham Council to take over the entire site of the Carpenters Estate close to the centre of Stratford, displacing all of the residents remaining in this popular council estate.
Newham Council, under its elected Mayor Robin Wales had long been hoping to realise a huge amount of cash by selling off the Carpenters Estate, a now extremely valuable area particularly because of its location close to Stratford Station and had been emptying out properties since around 2004 to facilitate this. UCL’s £1 billion proposal was exactly the kind of deal they had in mind, and it was quickly approved.
Residents remaining on the estate had for some years been fighting to remain in their homes forming CARP (Carpenters Against Regeneration Plan) to oppose the emptying and estate demolition under so-called ‘regeneration’. Newham’s reaction was to used underhand means to remove many of the activists from the tenant’s management organisation, but most most of the remaining members were now opposed to the UCL scheme.
Also expressing concern about the proposal were UCL’s own highly-regarded development planning unit, who issued a statement calling for a review of the proposals which should “include a clear commitment to the well-being of local and East London borough residents, the active participation of affected communities, as well as engagement with local government” of a scheme which had only emerged from private talks between Newham Council and UCL.
The protest at UCL began in the Main Quad with around a hundred people, including leading members of CARP and students and staff of UCL. After a few short speeches, the protesters moved to picket the main entrance to the building where the UCL council meeting had been rescheduled. They were then able to talk with some of the council members as they went in to the meeting, and one of these assured the protesters that the plans were not fully developed and there would be consultation with the residents before any development took place.
More protesters arrived, including members of Unison and the UCU who were picketing the meeting about proposals to change academic contracts which they say threaten academic freedom. The protesters then heard that the council meeting had been moved, and they decided to try to go closer to the new venue, moving into the university building. I walked with them, going past the dressed skeleton of Jeremy Bentham to a meeting room where they decided to hold an alternative council meeting. I left to go to another event, but some of the protesters kept up an ocupation of part of UCL for most of the day.
3 Cosas – Sick Pay, Holidays and Pensions – Senate House, University of London. Wednesday 28th November 2012
UCL and the University of London both received charters officially establishing them on 28th November 1836, and so today UoL was celebrating its Founder’s Day with an evening event inside Senate House. Cleaners and other low paid outsourced workers at the University of London protested outside the celebrations, calling for an end to unfair conditions and for equal employment rights — the ‘3 Cosas’ of Sick pay, Holiday Pay and Pensions.
UoL outsources its cleaning, maintenance, security, and catering services to private companies who cut their costs to make profits by paying low wages, with the legal minimums of sick pay, pathetic or no pension schemes, major pay problems, and lots of intimidation and bullying. They work under conditions no reputable employer would consider imposing – and much worse than similar grades of workers directly employed by the University alongside them in the same buildings.
The services these workers provide are essential in keeping the University running, but they are treated unfairly. Protests over several years led by Unison have led to the university finally agreeing that all those working on the site should be paid the London Living Wage. Many of the outsourced staff are Spanish speakers, some migrants granted asylum or right to remain and others EU citizens, often with qualifications not recognised in the UK. Their ‘3 Cosas’ campaign was led by Unison branches and the cleaners’ union, the IWGB, and supported by students and academics.
Over 50 protesters, some with drums and many with banners and flags protested outside the main gates to Senate House, handing out leaflets to those attending the Founders Day event. Many took these, while others angrily brushed them aside.
One student president who had an invitation to the event stopped to address the protest, only prepared to cross the picket line after the protesters after the protesters gave him leaflets and urged him to go inside and argue for their case.
Some of those attending the event were going in by the back way, and after a while the protesters noisily marched around the street along the side of the building to continue the protest there. The protest was still continuing when I decided it was time to go home.
