There were lots of events happening across the UK this year. Below are a few reports from London.
PCS members on strike at the Inland Revenue...
...and the British Library.
At Marks and Spencers HQ the GMB are protesting over health and safety...
...at the Bakkavor plant where Nital lost the tips of his fingers.
So its thumbs up for M&S!
At SOAS the staff and students are out in support of the cleaners.
Who start at 5am to recive the minimum wage.
In Europe's most expensive city.
The march was the usual flag wave...
...though it did have its moments.
Meanwhile at the headquarters of Marks and Spencers the GMB Trade Union was demonstrating in support of the mainly immigrant workforce at the Bakkavor food processing plant. The health and safety record at the plant is abysmal with several workers loosing fingers in faulty machinery. 80% of the workforce are on the minimum wage. Although Bakkavor enjoys relative anonymity it supplies some of the best known (and image conscious) high street retailers like Tescos and M&S. So to try and get recognition with the management the GMB are on a mission to embarrass their high profile customers. One man on the demo had lost the tips of two of his fingers in a faulty machine. Another his entire thumb. So much for New Labour’s workplace rights manifesto…
Down the road a SOAS staff and students were holding a march and rally in support of the cleaners. Despite its prestigious reputation (as an international centre of language teaching excellence) the college cleaning staff are on the minimum wage of £5.35 an hour. Unsurprisingly they are mostly immigrants employed by a company that refuses to recognise the union. They start work at five in the morning and clean other people’s toilets in Europe’s most expensive city. It’s now ten years since New Labour vowed to sort out the gap between rich and poor. Instead they have increased it.
Finally the traditional mayday march went from A to B with the usual speeches and hundreds of overpaid cops. The Police it seems are the only large group of employed people (sorry I can't bring myself to call them workers) to have seen their pay and conditions improve. Not to mention all that overtime brought about by the policies imposed by neoLabour both at home and abroad.
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