SOAS Unison | >Re-PHOTO

IWGB Protests to the Princess – 2017

IWGB Protests to the Princess: The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain and supporters protested outside Senate House while University of London Chancellor Princess Anne was visiting on Foundation Day. They called for all workers in the university to be directly employed by the university and IWGB members in the security staff had held one of a series of one-day strikes.

Although many of those who were attending the event with the princess had to walk in past a noisy protest, she was brought in by another entrance, and although they marched around when they heard this was happening they missed seeing her. But she will certainly have heard the protest.

The protest was one in a long series by outsourced low paid staff at the University to gain the same conditions of employment as directly employed staff in what was known as the ‘tres cosas campaign’ – sick pay, pensions, holidays. They wanted to end the University outsourcing their jobs in the University to private companies who employ staff on far worse conditions and pay than those they employ directly.

The protesters say the use of outside contractors to employ staff is discriminatory as outsourced workers including security, cleaning and catering staff are predominantly migrant and BME workers and it results in them being on far worse terms and conditions than other staff and also subjected to harassment and bullying.

A fairly large crowd had come for the protest to support the out-sourced workers. Among them were students from the University of London, including students from the LSE who were campaigning for their cleaners to be properly treated and brought in house. They also included members of other trade unions including the UCU London Region, strikers from the Picturehouse cinemas and McStrike fast food workers demanding a living wage.

There were also speakers from other IWGB sector branches and Sandy Nicholl from SOAS Unison who has led a ten year fight there against out-sourcing. A samba band made sure the protest was heard both outside and inside the building so the princess will have been very aware of what was happening.

In 2020 the IWGB web site recorded that “After almost 10-years of fighting with the IWGB to be brought in-house, cleaners, porters, and security guards at University of London won their ‘tres cosas’ campaign in a historic victory. Workers fought tirelessly to achieve their demands, which were aided by the Senate House Boycott movement and the support of many students and staff across University of London.” I’m pleased to have been able in my small way to have helped the union to achieve this result.

But the IWGB went on to state “Although the University of London still refuses to recognise us, we continue to be the majority union at the university, representing all workers – from cleaners to professional services staff.” Under current unfair employment law employers can continue to recognise the larger and less effective trade unions rather than those who the workers chose as they are more effective in getting results such as the IWGB.

More text and pictures about the evening’s protest at IWGB protest London Uni outsourcing.

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BEIS Birthday Strike, Ecocide and XR Procession

BEIS Birthday Strike, Ecocide and XR Procession: Monday 15th July 2019

BEIS workers begin indefinite strike, Westminster

Low paid cleaning and catering workers at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) on Victoria Street celebrated the third anniversary of their fight for proper pay and conditions with cakes as they walked out on the first ever indefinite strike at a government ministry.

The workers are demanding the London Living Wage and to be directly employed by the department rather than outsourcing companies ISS and Aramark.

As the workers came out on strike hey got a rousing reception from a crowd of around 100 with speeches from one of the strikers, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka, RMT General Secretary Mick Cash, newly elected UCU general secretary Jo Grady , Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, Labour MP Mary Glindon, National Vice-President of the PCS Zita Holbourne, Sam Gurney, TUC Regional Secretary, Kiri Tunks, Joint President of the NEU and Sandy Nicoll of SOAS Unison who led the succesful campaign to bring workers there back in-house. and one of the strikers.

I stayed long enough to eat a piece of one of the cakes which had been made for the protest, but then had to leave as the party continuned outside BEIS.

More pictures at BEIS workers begin indefinite strike.

XR call for Ecocide Law – Royal Courts of Justice, Strand

Extinction Rebellion was beginning another series of protests in five major cities against the criminal inaction by the government on climate and ecological collapse.

The main theme of the day’s protest was to call for a law making ecocide a criminal offence.

The protesters brought a yacht named after Polly Higgins who fought for years for an Ecocide Law to the Royal Courts of Justice.

They continued her fight blocking the Strand all day with performances, discussions, speeches, music and ceremonies in front of the yacht.

We need urgent action and our government along with most others has failed, continuing with policies which seem designed to make the situation worse and bring life on earth to an end, and XR is certainly bringing that to people’s attention, even if our media are still largely ignoring it and concentrating on trivia. But although I fully support the aims of XR I do find some of XR’s activities – yachts and new-age mumbo jumbo – off putting. In part I guess it’s a class thing – much of their activity seems insufferably middle class. Its probably an age thing too.

XR call for Ecocide Law

XR Summer Uprising procession

Having occupied the street across the front of the Royal Courts of Justice all day, the protesters and their yacht moved on around afternoon tea time to their home for the next three days, on Waterloo Millennium Green, a park area just south of Waterloo Station.

At the front of the procession were banners and a large crowd of people with XR flags, more banners, posters and placards, as well a large pink dodo. Bringing up the rear was the blue yacht named for the late Ecocide Law protester Polly Higgins, on a boat trailer, escorted by police.

When the procession was all on Westminster Bridge it came to a halt and people sat down blocking the road for a short protest against the police violence towards peaceful protesters when they were arresting people during the ‘Garden Bridge‘ occupation of the bridge in April.

There were a few short speeches there and the procession moved on. It came to a halt a little further on after police tried to block it on from moving onto the Millennium Green.

By this time the back of the procession was on its way around the IMAX Waterloo roundabout, and the rush hour was beginning. I hung around for around half an hour before deciding it was time to get on a train home. But by stopping the protest police had brought a large area of south London quite unnecessarily to a standstill.

Many more pictures at XR Summer Uprising procession.

SOAS Cleaners and Denmark Street Squat

Two unconnected events on Thursday 29th January 2015.

SOAS Cleaners demand Dignity & Respect – SOAS, London University

SOAS Cleaners and Denmark Street Squat — *‘Justice for Cleaners – Bring us in House – Dignity and Respect’ – Unison Branch Rep Sandy Nicholl*

Cleaners working at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies – SOAS – held a rally calling for improved conditions of service and an end to being treated as a second-class workforce. Supported by students and staff they continue their campaign to be employed by the University rather than cleaning contractor ISS.

SOAS is a university with an international reputation for its progressive views on political issues around the world and exposing the detrimental effects of neo-liberalism, but its management had failed to acknowledge the beam in its own eye, its disgraceful treatment of cleaners.

Most of those who keep the SOAS building clean and working smoothly are immigrants to the UK, mainly with Spanish as their first language. Instead of putting these people on the SOAS payroll and treating them as employees with similar rights to all the others who work in the same building, SOAS contracts out its cleaners. This denies them care and protection and leaves them open to exploitation and abuse by cut-price cleaning contractors.

Even worse in June 2009, SOAS management collaborated with the Home Office by calling a 6am “emergency meeting” of the cleaners which was in fact an immigration service raid, resulting in the deportation of nine cleaners. The raid came shortly after the SOAS Justice For Workers (J4W) had a successful campaign to achieve union recognition and the London Living Wage and was widely seen as a spiteful retaliation by the SOAS management following this victory.

The immigration raid is remembered at SOAS every year on its anniversary in June. The J4W campaign led by the SOAS Unison Branch continued and on 29th of January their protest for direct employment under the slogan ‘One Workplace, One Workforce’, supported by students, teaching and administrative staff as well as other trade unionists and organisations.

Eleven long years of protest, as well as work to show SOAS the advantages to the organisation of employing the cleaners directly finally resulted in a victory in 2018, when SOAS sent a letter to all staff, unions and support staff stating, ‘Our current staff in central facilities teams will be directly employed by the university. This means that they will be on equal pay and conditions with existing SOAS employees’.

More pictures at SOAS Cleaners demand Dignity & Respect.

‘Tin Pan Alley’ 12 Bar club faces eviction – Denmark St

Denmark Street is a short street linking St Giles High Street with Charing Cross Road, first developed in the late 17th century and named after Prince George of Denmark. When I first went down it in the 1970s it was a one-way back-street with little or no traffic, and both sides were lined with shops, offices and studios connected with the music industry.

*Squatters outside the Royal Courts of Justice on 28th January 2015*

This was Britain’s “Tin Pan Alley” where session musicians and artists gathered, meeting each other and looking for work. The Rolling Stones recorded their first album here and David Bowie recruited his first band in a bar. The Sex Pistols lived in the street and recorded their first demos here – and so much more. It became a huge centre for musical instrument sales; I came here to look in windows full of guitars and saxophones I couldn’t afford and later came her to buy a professional Roland keyboard for my sons.

*Outside the club in Denmark St, 29 January 2015*

But above the mainly early 20th century shop fronts were the houses, some dating from from the original buildings of 1686-9, and others not much later. Eight were Grade II listed, two as early as 1951 and the others in 1974. The street is one of very few, if not the only, one in London with such early facing terraces on both sides.

*In the alley at the side of the club was a free musicians noticeboard*

Listing ensured that the redevelopment of the street as a part of the Crossrail development around Tottenham Court Road would keep the facades, though much behind them is now new, and most of the old businesses have gone – many moving earlier as the music business changed and rents had rocketed. A petition with 10,000 signatures opposed the redevelopment asking for the street to be given full heritage status.

*Redevelopment had already begun behind the bar*

The 12 Bar Club had been running as a small live music venue since 1994 at 26 Denmark Street, in a listed building that began life in 1635 as stables but had in the early 18th century become a terraced house. The club closed in January 2015, and was then squatted by a group of musicians and supported opposed to its loss.

*Everyone on the music scene at some time played at the 12Bar*

I went there on 29th January when the squatters, #Bohemians4Soho had called for a street festival of resistance against their expected eviction the following day, having met and being invited by some of the squatters on the 28th as they demonstrated at the Royal Courst of Justice where a court case over their eviction was taking place.

Shortly before I arrived to take pictures they had been served with an IPO (interim possession order) giving them 24 hours to leave before they were committing a criminal offence. They left as the bailiffs arrived the following lunch time.

*The Ligaments – Nicola ‘Nitro’ Itro, Jake Maxwell & Zel Kaute – had played the last night of the 12Bar and came back to play during the occupation*

The listed building was stabilised, then lifted by crane for redevelopment to take place below it, after which it was lowered back into place. The old 12 Bar club room is now a part of a larger venue at the site.

More pictures: ‘Tin Pan Alley’ 12 Bar club faces eviction.

Sick Pay, Holidays And Pensions – End Outsourcing

Sick Pay, Holidays And Pensions – End Outsourcing – Nine years ago on Friday 28th June 2013 I photographed a protest by low-paid workers at the University of London who with their supporters ran into the Senate House and protested noisily inside the building for sick pay, holidays and pensions for all workers at the University.

I’ve spent some time over the past few days thinking about strikes and industrial actions, partly because of the rail strikes. My local station is one of the few that still has a train service, but out of solidarity with the workers I won’t be using it on strike days, and on the days in between it is still likely to be unreliable.

*The campaigners met up at SOAS before the protest*

Of course I support the strikers, many of them low paid workers and all of whom have seen the value of their wages cut over the last few years. And these have been years when for all the problems that politicians and media state many of the wealthy have got considerably wealthier – and some made huge fortunes over Brexit and profited greatly (and not always legally) over Covid. We are living in an increasingly unfair society, and with a government which despite claims about levelling up is doing its damnedest to make the rich richer while making the poor poorer.

*After marching quietly past university buildings they dashed towards Senate House*

The government and train operating companies make much of the need to modernise the railways and I can only agree with them. We desperately need to get back to a sensible structure for running railways, to reverse the breakup of the system into small pieces, each with its highly paid management, caused by the doctrinaire privatisation of the 1990s. And yes, there are other changes which could greatly improve the system, but what the companies mean by modernisation is largely slashing the additional rates for overtime, weekend and night work. It’s ‘we’ll give you more pay if we can cut your wages at the same time’.

*and were all inside the building before security noticed*

June 28th is said to be the date on which new restrictions on the right to protest pushed through parliament in the last session come into effect. I think the protest by the IWGB on behalf of low paid workers employed by contract companies at London University on Friday 28th January 2013 would clearly have been illegal in several ways had this law been in place then. And it would be precisely those aspects that made this and most other protests over low pay effective that could have resulted in arrests.

*They swarmed up the stairs towards the Vice-Chancellor’s office*

I don’t know how (or even if) the police will enforce the new laws. Although I think they will have little appetite to do so, there will be considerably political pressure on them. And while the large unions will worry about the huge impact legal measures would have on their funds and largely play safe, perhaps the small grass-roots unions who have been so much more effective for low paid workers will feel they have less to lose.

*They held a noisy protest outside the Vice-Chancellor’s office*

Back in 2013, the low paid workers who keep London University running were taking part in a ‘Summer of Action’, supported by the grass roots IWGB union (Independent Workers of Great Britain) and the students of the ULU (University of London Union.)

*making sure he and his staff could hear why they were protesting*

Many of the the cleaners, security guards and catering staff who work in the same buildings as other service staff employed by the university have brutally inferior conditions of service as they employed on behalf of the university by contracting companies who give them none of the kind or working conditions that any considerate employer would provide.

*They then returned to the large lobby below to tell those attending conferences why workers were protesting.*

Often they are not provided with proper safety equipment and expected to work in unsafe ways to get the job done, and may have to put up with harsh and unreasonable demands over workload, derogatory treatment and even racism from the managers employed by contract companies.

But this ‘3 Cosas’ protest was largely about three things, sick pay, holidays and pensions, on which these outsourced staff often have to fight even to get the rock-bottom statutory minimum provisions. Statutory sick pay is so low that few workers can afford to take time off when they are sick. Even at the height of Covid, many who were unwell had to drag themselves into work, putting their own health and that of others at risk to pay their rent and feed their families.

*They continued a noisy protest in the lobby and its balconies for a few minutes*

It took many protests such as this to persuade the University and other bodies to end the unfair outsourcing – even when studies showed there were considerable advantages in having a properly employed workforce and little if any financial loss. At SOAS, where the protesters met before the protest the Justice for Workers Campaign led by SOAS Unison branch began in 2006 and was only finally successful in 2018.

*and then decided it was time to leave, pleased that the protest had gone so well.*

The IWGB is still campaigning against outsourcing at University College London (UCL) and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) as well as other campaigns. A few days ago I photographed them outside the London offices of the world’s largest healthcare multinational Health Corporation of America (HCA) Healthcare, who run the private London Bridge Hospital, and they also support other groups of low-paid workers, including foster carers, delivery drivers, minicab drivers and cycling instructors.

More about the 3 Cosas protest at Cleaners Surprise Senate House Invasion.