{"id":276,"date":"2008-04-30T10:38:16","date_gmt":"2008-04-30T10:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=276"},"modified":"2008-04-30T10:38:16","modified_gmt":"2008-04-30T10:38:16","slug":"sweet-and-sour-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=276","title":{"rendered":"Sweet and Sour Protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

The scene in Trafalgar Square on April 20 was a pretty amazing one as it was packed out for a demonstration by the Ethnic Catering Alliance, representing the many Chinese, Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani and Turkish restaurants and food outlets that have revolutionised eating out in Britain.<\/p>\n


\nShowing the crowd – a ‘Hail Mary’ with the 10.5mm fisheye<\/em><\/p>\n

Gordon Brown<\/em>‘s proposal that British workers should be trained to fill staff shortages that are hitting ethnic restaurants no longer able to recruit staff from the home countries seems more a gift for comedy writers than a serious proposal. And our Polish friends who came over to fix our plumbing problems (and increasingly to run so many service industries) are hardly likely to bring a great knowledge of curry-making – or be prepared to accept the below minimum wages and poor working conditions that some ethnic restaurants offer. Nor do I foresee a great marketing opportunity for dumplings.<\/p>\n

One of the speakers brought up the very pertinent observation that very few of the sons and daughters of migrants who grow up in this country want to go into the catering industry – and indeed their parents want them to do better, to become lawyers, doctors etc. The reason was pretty clear in the square, with the contrast between the smartly cut expensive suits of some of the restaurateurs <\/strong>around the platform and the mass-market clothing in the bulk of the square. Although owning a restaurant can be extremely profitable, working in one tends to be a low paid and unpleasant dead end. A real symptom of the actual problem of the restaurant industry was the lack of union participation in the event.<\/p>\n

Of course there are very real problems, and a considerable amount of victimisation of migrant workers, both those here legally and those without permission to work here (who are never illegal workers but may be people working illegally.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One of the longest placards at the demonstration – see above – read:<\/p>\n

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS<\/u><\/p>\n

There are thousands of
\nillegals in the ports,
\nstreets & working in the NHS
\nand HOME OFFICE. But Only
\nSOFT<\/u> targets like Chinese restaurants
\nare being raided with heavy-handed
\nTactics By BIA<\/p>\n

YOU ARE DESTROYING OUR LIVELIHOODS.
\nWHY?
\nIS THIS RACIAL DISCRIMINATION?<\/p>\n

Those who regard the BIA, (the Border and Immigration Agency, now a part of the UK Border Agency) as an institutionally racist organisation set up to implement an inherently racist immigration policy, largely driven by knee-jerk political responses to the distortion of a racist popular press would perhaps find this naive. Rather too much like being surprised that the SS persecuted Jews. But still of course something that people – and not just ethnic caterers – should be demonstrating about.<\/p>\n

Ethnic Catering Alliance – Save the British Curry Industry<\/a> on My London Diary<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The scene in Trafalgar Square on April 20 was a pretty amazing one as it was packed out for a demonstration by the Ethnic Catering Alliance, representing the many Chinese, Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani and Turkish restaurants and food outlets that have revolutionised eating out in Britain. Showing the crowd – a ‘Hail Mary’ with the … Continue reading Sweet and Sour Protest<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-own-work","category-political-issues"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}