Wood St | >Re-PHOTO

More City of London Panoramas – 1994

More City of London Panoramas: This is the final set of picturesI’ll post from those I made while working on a personal project on the City of London in July 1994. Of course I took many which I’ve not digitised, spending several days walking the City and making over 300 exposures. The camera I used makes negatives on standard 35mm film which are wider than normal and a ’36 exposure’ film only gets around 20 or 21 panoramic frames. Film loading is also trickier as the film has to go around a curve.

Each exposure took a few minutes to select a viewpoint, set up my tripod, level the camera, use a handheld lightmeter to check exposure and finally press the cable release. Most of those not uploaded are similar to those I have posted with just minor changes to the view.

*London Bridge Walk, Tooley St, Borough High St, Southwark, 1994, 94-711-52*

Not quite in the City, but made as I made my way from London Bridge Station to London Bridge along London Bridge Walk. The road in the background is Borough High Street which leads on to London Bridge and the City boundary is in the middle of the river. You can just see the pinnacles on the top of the tower of Southwark Cathedral.

After the operation of the Waterloo & City underground line from Network South East to London Underground in April 1994 I could no longer use my ‘London Terminals’ ticket on this route, and my cheapest journey became to go to London Bridge on this and walk across to the City.

This is one of a few pictures I had digitised but missed when I was uploading these images to Flickr.

*High Walk, Wood St, City, 1994, 94-713-42*

Another exposure from the highwalk at Wood Street, leading south along the east side of the street away from London Wall. In the centre of the picture is the City of London Police Headquarters, with two white police vans at bottom right. Steps lead down from the walkway to Wood Street but the highwalk also continued straight on at extreme left – though with more steps.

In the centre of Wood Street at right is the tower of St Alban Wood Street. The medieval church was destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. The church was largely destroyed in the Blitz in 1940. The tower remained and was Grade II* listed in 1950 and is now a private house; the remains of the rest of the church were demolished in 1965.

*Lower Thames St, King William St, City, 1994, 94-711-12*

Again on my way from London Bridge Station to the centre of the City, this is made from where London Bridge joins to King William Street and goes across Lower Thames Street. You can see a highwalk bridge going across Lower Thames street a couple of hundred yards to the east, still there in 2025.

Until around 1970 Thames Street was a fairly narrow street, just wide enough to allow a single lane of traffic in both directions. It was then turned into a major road and divided at London Bridge into Lower and Upper Thames Street. At the left you can clearly see where older buildings were cut through to widen the road.

The heart of the City. I made the picture close to the corner of Mansion House Street and Princes Street with the Underground entrance on the corner. At left is a corner of the Bank of England and the main modern building towering above it is the Stock Exchange Tower, home to the Stock Exchange until 2004.

Towards the centre is the Royal Exchange, I think then still home to the International Financial Futures Exchange rather than just an upmarket shopping mall. Two buildings full of banks and insurance companies book-end Hawksmoor’s St Mary Woolnuth and at the extreme right is the edge of the Mansion House with a gilded lamp on its steps.

*Milton Court, Silk Street, City, 1994, 94-713-21*

Another section of highwalks ran from close to Moorgate Station to the Barbican Estate and these last four pictures show sections of this, which could also be accessed from Ropemaker Street. This northern section has now been lost.

Milton Court was designed by Chamberlin, Powell & Bon and built as a part of the Barbican development in 1959 for various City services – “a fire station, Coroner’s Court, mortuary, office of weights and measures and a civil defence school.”

It was arguably London’s most outstanding single post-war building and English Heritage wanted to list it in 2001, but the government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport objected and in 2007 Secretary of State James Purnell granted it immunity from listing. In a sad act of cultural vandalism this remarkable building was demolished in 2008.

*Milton Court, Silk Street, City, 1994, 94-713-12*

The building which replaced Milton Court was also given the same name but is a much more bland modern structure. The bridge which linked to the northern section of highwalk disappeared.

The new 115m tall Milton Court is described on its builders Sir Robert McAlpine web site: “Climbing to 36 storeys, Milton Court redefines luxury living in the Square Mile. In addition to a graceful residential tower, the development is home to a spectacular new annexe to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.” But to me it looks like just another tall city office block.

*Highwalk, Ropemaker St, City, 1994, 94-715-52*

This enclosed section of highwalk ran from Ropemaker Street to the bridge across Silk Street to the Speed Highwalk still there along the north side of Speed House.

*Ropemaker St, Islington, City, 1994, 94-715-32*

Remarkably I think none of the buildings in this picture looking east along Ropemaker Street has ssurvived. Even the building at left, Ropemaker Place, a 60m high block which I photographed while it was being built in 1986 and was completed in 1987 and which I thought was one of the more attractive modern buildings in (or rather a few feet outside) didn’t last long and was demolished only 18 years later in 2005.

Around the Highwalks – Wood Street 1994

Around the Highwalks – Wood Street: London’s ambitious series of ‘highwalks’, aimed at separating movement on foot from traffic began after World War 2 when the City began to rebuild after extensive war damage – a process that really sprung into action on a large scale in the 1950s.

*Highwalk, Wood St, City, 1994, 94-708-21*

As Wikipedia states, “In 1947 architect Charles Holden and planner William Holford” had put forward a blueprint for “a network of first-floor walkways that would connect buildings across the City.”

Wood St, Escalator, London Wall, City, 1994, 94-709-12, 1994, 94-709-31 — *Wood St, Escalator, London Wall, City, 1994, 94-709-31*

The City of London Pedway Scheme was later adopted by the City of London Corporation and to get planning permission by the 1960s all new developments were required to include first floor access to walkways. It worked where there had large areas destroyed by bombing – such as the Barbican, but elsewhere these walkways were often dead ends leading nowhere.

*Wood St, Escalator, London Wall, City, 1994, 94-709-12*

Although London had suffered greatly from the bombing, much survived – and many damaged buildings had been restored in the immediate aftermath of the war. Although some of the city’s older buildings were demolished there was an increasing recognition of the value of many of them. The 1944 Town and Country Planning Act had given the government power to create a statutory list of buildings of special architectural interest – and those powers were increased in the 1947 Act.

*Green Cuisine, Highwalk, Wood St, London Wall Citry, 1994, 94-709-21*

Listing of buildings began seriously after this, and many buildings in the City gained some protection from demolition – and a resurvey in 1968 began to add more to the lists. It became increasingly clear that the Pedway scheme would never be able to produce a really coherent scheme over most of the City and by the mid-1980s it was effectively discontinued.

*Highwalk, St Alphage Highwalk, London Wall, City, 1994, 94-710-22*

Since then some parts of the walkway system have been lost, while some areas still remain. Around London Wall while some parts of it were closed. The part of the St Alphage Highwalk in these pictures had been demolished but it was partly replaced by a new section during redevelopment around 2017.

*Highwalk, St Alphage Highwalk, London Wall, City, 1994, 94-710-12*

Another problems with the Pedway is that London’s transport systems – buses and Underground largely leave passengers at street level. Getting to the highwalks generally requires going up steps and most people would prefer to simply continue to their destination at street level.

Highwalk, St Alphage Highwalk, London Wall, City, 1994, 94-710-11

For those with disabilities which make steps difficult or impossible this is a real barrier. There were very few places where escalators were provided to ease the problems as these were expensive.

More panoramic images from the City Highwalks in a later post.

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PIP, NHS, Trident & Cleaners – 2016

PIP, NHS, Trident & Cleaners: Wednesday 13th July 2016 was a busy day for me, covering two protests in the ‘#PIPFightback’ National Day of Action against the Personal Independence Payments, a rally in favour of a parliamentary bill to stop the ongoing privatisation of the NHS, a party against plans to spend huge amounts on new nuclear weapons and ending with a rally supporting cleaners in the longest running industrial dispute in the history of the City of London.

PIP Fightback – Vauxhall & Westminster

On this day there were around 20 actions by disabled protesters and their supporters as a ‘#PIPFightback’ National Day of Action against PIP, the Personal Independence Payments which have been a totally inadequate replacement for the Disabled Living Allowance which had previously provided support to enable disabled people to work and live on more even terms with the rest of the community.

I began at the Vauxhall PIP Consultation Centre in Vauxhall where ATOS carry out sham Personal Independence Payments ‘assessments’ on behalf of the DWP. These are carried out without without proper consideration of medical evidence and with ATOS haing a financial incentive to fail claimants.

Many genuine claimants have lost essential benefits for months before these are restored by tribunals on appeal. The temporary loss of finance has resulted in some being taken into hospitals and some commiting suicide.

Other claimants lose benefits as job centres ‘sanction’ them, often for trivial or unfair reasons such as arriving late for interviews due to bus or train delays – or because they have not received a letter about the appointment.

Among those taking part in this protest was Gill Thompson, whose brother David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier died in July 2013 after his benefits were ‘sanctioned’. He was left starving without money for food or electricity to keep the fridge containing his insulin running. She carried a banner with the names and a few pictures of around 100 claimants known to have died because of sanctions. This appears to be a relatively small fraction of the total which runs into thousands.

Later I joined a larger protest with members of the Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN), Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and Winvisible (Women with Invisible and Visible Disabilities) and others in Westminster outside the Victoria Street offices of Capita who also carry out these shoddy assessments.

There were speeches on the pavement there before the protesters moved onto the busy road blocking traffic in both directions, though they quickly moved aside to let a ambulance through.

After a few minutes Paula Peters of DPAC announced it was time to move on and the protesters marched along the road past the Met Police HQ at New Scotland Yard and on the the DWP offices at Caxton House.

Here they blocked the road for some more speeches before moving on to Parliament where there was another short rally on the road before they moved on to the media village on College Green where politicians were being interviewed on TV over the appointment of a new Prime Minister, Theresa May.

Police blocked them from going onto the Green, but soon some went past them and refused police requests to move; eventually they were allowed to stand on a path in the middle of the area. Although all the TV crews present could see and hear the protest, only one or two bothered to come across and find out what was happening – and I think these were from foreign news agencies.

Disabled PIP Fightback blocks Westminster
PIP Fightback at Vauxhall

NHS Bill protest at Parliament

Protesters from various campaigns to save the NHS held a protest in support as Labour MP for Wirral West Margaret Greenwood presented a ‘Ten Minute Rule Bill’ with cross-party support to stop the privatisation of the NHS and return it to its founding principles. Labour Shadow Health Secretary Diane Abbott came out to speak in support at the protest.

More pictures: NHS Bill protest at Parliament

Trident Mad Hatters Tea Party – Parliament Sq

CND members were lobbying MPs at Parliament against plans to replace Trident at a cost of at least £205 billion.

And on the square facing the Houses of Parliament was a ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’, as well as Christians with placards stating the opposition by churches of the different denominations to the replacement.

Trident Mad Hatters Tea Party

Solidarity for Wood St cleaners – City of London

The strike by cleaners at the 100 Wood St offices managed by CBRE was now the longest running industrial dispute in the history of the City of London.

The cleaners belong to the United Voices of the World union and are employed by anti-union cleaning contractor Thames Cleaning.

Unite the Resistance, the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Class War and others had come to support the United Voices of the World. After a rally opposite the Wood Street offices, then marched around the block and then went on hold a rally blocking the street outside the CBRE offices at St Martin’s Court.

Solidarity for Wood St cleaners

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Iran, Palestine, Hong Kong, UK Strikers & City Views

Solidarity protests on Friday 10th October 2014 and some extreme wide angle views in the City of London.

Solidarity for Care UK Strikers – Care UK, Southwark

Iran, Palestine, Hong Kong, UK Strikers & City Views — *Protesters outside the offices in Great Guildford St*

The protest by members from the National Shops Stewards Network, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition and Southwark Unison was one of many around the country in a nation-wide day of solidarity with Doncaster Care UK workers who had been on strike for 81 days after huge cuts in pay and services were made by a private equity company who have taken over this part of the NHS.

Care UK is now owned by Bridgepoint, which also owns businesses including Fat Face and Pret a Manger. The workers are on strike not just over cuts in their own wages, but also against the changes in how Care UK is allowed to operate by the new bosses. What was formerly a values-based health service able to address the needs of those with learning disorders in their own community has been radically altered to providing minimum standards of service at the lowest possible cost to get the greatest profits for Bridgepoint, and for the company they will be sold on to once the private equity company has slimmed services and pay to the bone.

Solidarity for Care UK Strikers

Free Ghoncheh Ghavami – SOAS action

The current unrest in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the morality police’ for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly, so that some of her hair was visible is unprecedented, but women there have been oppressed by religious police since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

*An Iranian woman who cannot go back to Iran*

In 2014 former SOAS Law student Ghoncheh Ghavami was arrested and detained with other women for going to try to watch a volleyball match in Tehran. At the time of the protest outside SOAS University of London she had been held for 104 days and had been on hunger strike for 10 days. The protesters included a number of Iranian students one of whom told the protest she could not return to Iran as the TV coverage of a volleyball game in Rome had shown her reacting to a score.

The rally was supported by staff and the SOAS staff unions UCU and Unison, as well as by the SOAS Student Union, and some students took part in a day’s hunger strike in solidarity and there was a candlelight vigil. Ghavami was released on bail on 23 November 2014 and later sentenced to a year in jail and a two-year travel ban for “propaganda against the regime”.

Free Ghoncheh Ghavami – SOAS action

City Panoramas

I had an hour or two to spare before the next protest I was to cover and spent some of this walking around the city and making some extreme wide-angle photographs.

Although these pictures have a normal aspect ratio, they have a horizontal angle of view of over 145 degrees and a vertical angle of around 90 degrees, only possible by using a lens which does not give the more normal ‘rectilinear’ perspective but represents the scene with some curvature.

City Panoramas

Palestine protest at Hewlett Packard – Wood St

The Palestinian Prisoners Campaign continued their campaign against Hewlett-Packard, which boasts of ‘a massive presence’ in Israel and are the IT backbone for the Israeli war machine with a picket outside their London offices.

Police watched the protest across the street from HP’s offices carefully and umbrellas in the colours of the Palestinian flag and large banners made the protest very visible. Speeches and posters taped on the pavement gave details of HP’s involvement in the oppression and imprisonment of Palestinians which were also stated on the leaflets the protesters handed out.

Palestine protest at Hewlett Packard

Solidarity with the Umbrella Revolution – Chinese Embassy

Umbrellas were also on display at the protest around the doorway of the Chinese Embassy on Portland Place organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts in solidarity with the ‘umbrella revolution’ of the students and workers of Hong Kong in their fight for democracy.

Most of the umbrellas were on posters and placards, though some protesters carried small yellow paper umbrellas and there were just a few full-size ones too.

Police tried to move the protesters to the other side of the road, but they refused to move. They called for the immediate release of all the arrested, an end to the suppression of peaceful assembly, replacing the “fake universal suffrage” formula with the genuine political reform workers have been demanding, and the resignation of Chief Executive Leung Chun Ying.

Solidarity with the Umbrella Revolution

City Cleaners Strike, Cyclists mourned

City Cleaners Strike, Cyclists mourned – A rally on Wood Street on Friday 10th June 2016 marked the third day of what became the longest strike ever in the City of London, and later at City Hall a vigil remembered 11 road users killed on London streets since the mayoral election last month, including three cyclists.

Day 3 UVW Wood St Cleaners Strike – 100 Wood St, City of London

Cleaners belonging to the United Voices of the World union employed by anti-union cleaning contractor Thames Cleaning to clean the 100 Wood St offices managed by CBRE held a rally at the end of their picket on the third day of their strike.

The offices there are mainly used by Schroders and J P Morgan, both large and highly profitable companies, but the cleaners are on poverty wages and several union members had been sacked and others served with notice by Thames Cleaning for organising the workers to demand a living wage.

Rather than talk with the UVW, Thames’s response to the strike threat had been to spend over £20,000 in the High Court trying to get an injunction to prohibit the strikes and protests. Although the court would not stop them, they issued an injunction which set down strict conditions for the picket and protest and this left the UVW with crippling legal costs.

The UVW is a small grass roots union supported only by dues from its members and unlike the large established trade unions has little or no money to run its activities which include educational workshops as well as supporting its members in the workplace and at employment tribunals. Those who perform duties for it are paid the London Living Wage for the time spent and there are no highly paid union officials. The union had to issue an emergency appeal for cash – and received support from people and union branches across the trade union movement.

*Candy Udwin, PCS Rep at the National Gallery holds a banner*

One aspect of the injunction was that any protest connected with the strike had to keep at least 10 metres from the doorway of the offices. Of course picketing is covered by strict trade union laws and a lengthy code of practice that requires it to be as reasonably close as possible to the entrance and exit, and limits it to six or less clearly identified pickets with a supervisor (and possibly also a union organiser) behaving in a peaceful manner.

The protest took place over a carefully measured 10 metres away on the opposite side of the street after a picket which had begun in the early morning when the cleaners would normally have arrived for work. The strike continued for 58 days before the UVW was able to announce that a satisfactory agreement had been reached with the employer and all further action was ended.

There are four posts about the Wood Street Strike on My London Diary for June (and more in later months) :
UVW Cleaners on Strike in City
Day 3 UVW Wood St Cleaners Strike
UVW Wood St Strike Day 10
UVW Wood St Strike continues

London Traffic Deaths Vigil – City Hall

Although London had an impressive purpose-built County Hall on the south bank just downstream of Westminster Bridge, this was sold off when Margaret Thatcher vindictively disbanded the Greater London Council, leaving London rudderless for 14 critical years. After the Greater London Authority was created in 2000, it was without a proper home for two years before leasing and moving into a purpose-built oddly spherical building by Norman Foster in the misleadingly named ‘More London’ currently owned by the Kuwait sovereign wealth fund who disguise themselves as St Martins Property Investments Limited.

Many saw the move to the new building as a failure of purpose by the Labour government in noy re-acquiring County Hall for the new London-wide authority – but then Labour under Blair continued most of Thatcher’s policies rather than move away from her individualist greed-based approach towards one getting back to the social welfare which had been at the heart of post-war Labour.

London’s City Hall moved in 2022 to Kamal Chunchie Way, Newham, E16 into the former ‘The Crystal’ exhibition centre beside the northern end of London’s ‘Dangleway’ cable car, though this is expected to close fairly soon as no replacement sponsor has come up to keep it running.

Sadiq Khan had retaken London as a Labour Mayor on May 5th 2016, with a decisive win over Conservative Zac Goldsmith and the Green candidate Siân Berry trailing badly in third place. Since then, 11 people had died on the streets of London, roughly around the average for that period in Greater London (in 2019, the total for the year was 125.)

Protests are – at least theoretically – not usually allowed in ‘More London’, but this one was hosted by Green Party London wide Assembly Member Caroline Russell, a member of the GLA Transport Committee and organised by London Women on Bikes (LWOB), #LondonBusWatch, Westminster Living Streets and BMX Life. Of the 11 who died, 3 were cyclists and the others were on foot.

Most road deaths are not ‘accidents’ but “happen because road users make mistakes, often made harder to avoid because of poor vehicle or road design. Many of them result from a lack of proper facilities for pedestrians and cyclists in a road system which prioritises getting motorised vehicles from A to B as fast as possible rather than safety. Some are caused by the failure of police to enforce road traffic law – for example on advanced stop lines at traffic lights.”

One of the cyclists killed was BMX rider Dan ‘Cash’ Stephenson, hit by a bus on the Strand during a BMX Life charity ride and many other BMX riders had come to the vigil, wearing tartan ribbons in his memory as he always rode in tartan. There were a number of speeches and then the names of those killed were read, followed by an eleven minutes of silence when those at the vigil were invited to stand in silence or to lie down, with or without bikes, in a silent ‘die-in’.

As the vigil came to an end and people were beginning to leave we were all called back for a highly emotional moment when Dan ‘Cash’ Stephenson’s daughter spoke through tears about her father.

London Traffic Deaths Vigil

Five Years Ago – 13th July 2016

Wednesday was a busy day for me on 13th July 2016, photographing five events in London.

Cleaners at the 100 Wood St offices were still on strike against the anti-union cleaning contractor Thames Cleaning, by then the longest running industrial dispute in the history of the City of London and supporters including Unite the Resistance, the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Class War and others held a rally in support of the action by the United Voices of the World trade union, beginning on Wood St and then moving on to the street outside CBRE who manage the offices.

CND members and supporters had come to Parliament to lobby MPs against the plans to replace Trident at a cost of at least £205 billion, and held a ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’ in Parliament Square where members of Faith groups including both Christians and Buddhists held placards. Church leaders had written to The Times stating ‘The Government must take a lead – cancelling Trident would be a momentous step – Britain can lead the way!’ The government was instead led in its decisions by the lobbyists from those arms companies that profit greatly from these totally redundant weapons.

Also on Parliament Square was a protest supporting Labour MP for Wirral West Margaret Greenwood’s ‘Ten Minute Rule Bill’ with cross-party support to stop the privatisation of the NHS and return it to its founding principles. Among those who spoke was Shadow Health Minister Diane Abbot.

The day was also a ‘#PIPFightback’ National Day of Action against the Personal Independence Payments which disabled people say are a totally inadequate replacement for the Disabled Living Allowance. These rely on systematically flawed assessments carried out by private firms Capita and Atos which make no allowances for many variable conditions and ignore medical evidence. Administered by poorly qualified staff, many are overturned at tribunals after disabled people have suffered for months, sometimes leading to hospitalisation or suicide.

I’d started the day outside the Vauxhall PIP Consultation Centre run by ATOS in a back street with a small group of protesters including Gill Thompson, whose brother David Clapson, a diabetic ex-soldier died in July 2013 after his benefits were ‘sanctioned’. He was left starving without money for food or electricity to keep the fridge containing his insulin running. Like many his benefits had been stopped for trivial reasons and she was calling for a full and public inquiry into cases like those of her brother and to ensure a fairer system for vulnerable claimants.

Later people from the Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN), Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and Winvisible (Women with Invisible and Visible Disabilities) and other supporters met outside the Victoria St offices of Capita PLC, one of the companies responsible for PIP assessments and held a rally on the busy pavement there.

After some speeches they moved from the narrow pavement to the busy road to continue their protest, holding up traffic for a few minutes, though they quickly moved to one side to allow an ambulance to drive through.

From there the moved to hold a short protest outside the Department of Work & Pensions offices at Caxton House, and then on to Parliament Square for another short rally.

Finally they decided to go to College Green where a media village was present with politicians being interviewed on TV over the appointment of Theresa May as Prime Minister. Police tried to stop them going into the area, but after some moved in eventually allowed them to stand on a path in the middle of the area a few yards away from the TV crews, who almost all totally ignored the protesters. Disabled people suffering and even dying apparently isn’t news.

Solidarity for Wood St cleaners
Trident Mad Hatters Tea Party
Disabled PIP Fightback blocks Westminster
NHS Bill protest at Parliament
PIP Fightback at Vauxhall

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

UVW at Wood St – 29 June 2016

The strike and protests organised by the United Voices of the World union against anti-union cleaning contractor Thames Cleaning who employed the cleaners at the 100 Wood St offices in the City of London, managed by CBRE and mainly let to Schroders and J P Morgan is a good example of one of the things the current Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is aiming to prevent.

The UVW use loud rallies and protests outside workplaces (and sometimes in their foyers) to shame employers who are exploiting low paid workers, many migrants, into talking to the union. These workers, often employed by small and intensely anti-union companies, are often on minimum legal rates of pay, well below the London Living Wage and usually on the statutory minimum (and minimal) conditions of service – and sometimes even have problems getting these.

Outsourcing of low paid work such as cleaning is widespread, and contractors get the contracts by cutting costs – such as wages and conditions of service – and also by using bullying management to over-work their employees. Often too they cut costs by ignoring safety issues and failing to supply protective clothing and other essential safety material.

The UVW strike at Wood St was the longest industrial dispute in the history of the City of London, and it continued after Thames Cleaning had agreed to pay the London Living Wage for some days until they also agreed to re-instate the two workers who had been sacked. These pictures come from a rally on day 22 of the 58 day strike.

The strike was only successful because of the continuing pressure provided by loud protests such as this one, which made the companies working in the offices very aware of what was happening and made them and the building owners put pressure on the contracting company to meet the union and agree to their demands. Protests such as these, by the UVW and other grass-roots unions including CAIWU, the IWGB and a few branches of major unions have been successful in getting many of London’s lowest paid workers a living wage.

The PCSC bill, if it becomes law, will make these activities illegal. Already under existing laws, the company was able to take legal action to try and get an injunction to stop the strike. Although this failed it did get strict conditions put on the UVW’s actions at Wood St, and landed the union with crippling legal costs. Fortunately many supporters came forward with donations.

I came to take pictures on a number of occasions during the strike, which you can find on My London Diary. These pictures are all from Day 22: UVW Wood St Strike continues.