Letting Brokers, Bears, Bahrain & John Lewis: 4 protests on what began out as a really moist day in London on Saturday 14th July 2012.
Tenants Protest Letting Brokers Rip-off – Drivers & Norris, Holloway Rd
My working day started on the pavement outdoors letting brokers Drivers & Norris on Holloway Highway, condemning them for having taken over £300 from residence seekers and offering nothing return however refusing to return the fee.
A few of the members of the Harringey Non-public Tenants Motion Group participating within the protest had paid upfront charges of £300 in money to safe new flats, however the firm had failed to supply them with any provides of lodging however had refused to return the charge.
Drivers & Norris and different firms say that the fee is to cowl the reference checks that they need to make, however these price them round £19. The charges are merely a rip-off to extend the corporate earnings on the expense of poor and susceptible individuals in want of housing.
Police arrived and tried to get the protesters to cease, suggesting it would distract drivers on the busy foremost highway and trigger an accident. It appeared merely one other try by the police to suppress the fitting to lawful protest and to take the facet of the rich towards the poor. The protesters after all refused to cease and the officers went in to drink tea with the property brokers leaving the small peaceable protest to proceed.
My remark again in 2012 “Brokers have profited enormously from the shortage of inexpensive housing within the London space, with property costs nicely above something that anybody on a median wage can afford. Coupled with a scientific assault by successive governments on the safety of personal tenants and on the availability of social housing over greater than 30 years this has resulted in a dire scarcity of housing for extraordinary individuals in London and the south-east. Even the place housing developments are happening in London, the properties are sometimes many purchased by abroad traders focused on excessive earnings in an overheated housing market.” Issues since then have gotten worse.
Extra at Tenants Protest Letting Brokers Rip-off.
PETA ‘Spare the Bears’ March – Marble Arch
From Holloway Highway I rushed right down to Marble Arch on the Underground to satisfy the PETA march because it arrived there from its begin near Waterloo. I’d gone there earlier than going to Haringey, however hadn’t discovered something I assumed price photographing within the regular rain, so had gone away to return to the march later.
PETA was demanding an finish to killing of bears for the Queen’s Guards’ ceremonial headwear. It takes the pores and skin of a complete black bear to make a busby, and they’re cruelly hunted. They are saying some bears escape after being shot a number of instances and bleed to dying and that in “some Canadian provinces, there are not any restrictions on the taking pictures of moms who’ve nursing cubs, resulting in the slaughter of total households throughout hunts.”
The MoD nonetheless takes 100 bear skins a yr from Canadian hunters and justifies its refusal to maneuver to utilizing artificial supplies by saying “one has come remotely near matching the pure properties of bear fur when it comes to form, weight and its potential to repel moisture in moist situations.” Maybe we should always simply cease dressing elements of our military as toy troopers.
Extra footage PETA ‘Spare the Bears’ March.
Solidarity with the Bahraini prisoners – Bahraini embassy, Belgrave Sq.
A brief bus trip and stroll took me to the Bahraini embassy the place protesters have been gathering to name for the discharge of prisoners in Bahrain, to sentence the killing of Mohammad Rahdi Mahfoodh and assaults on his funeral, and for an finish to the puppet regime of the Bedouin Al Khalifa tribe.
I arrived because the protest was starting and among the protesters and audio system together with Jeremy Corbyn had arrived.
However sadly I needed to go away for the cleaners’ protest in Oxford St earlier than issues actually acquired going and earlier than the principle speeches from Corbyn and others.
Solidarity with the Bahraini prisoners
John Lewis cleaners step up protest – Oxford St
I had been on the flagship John Lewis retailer on Oxford Avenue the day gone by when their cleaners have been taking a day of strike motion, with a rally and a short invasion of the shop, the primary strike at John Lewis because it grew to become the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) following a strike in 1920.
The cleaners have been in dispute with the JLP for some years, campaigning for his or her service to the corporate to be recognised and to be handled like the opposite staff there who’re ‘companions’ and profit from an annual bonus from the corporate earnings. Additionally they are demanding to be paid the London Dwelling Wage. Reasonably then immediately make use of its cleansing workers JLP has outsourced them to Built-in Cleansing Administration (ICM).
The strike was precipitated when ICM introduced there could be a 50% lower in jobs and hours to scrub the shop, and refused to pay the residing wage. ICM additionally refuse to recognise the IWW, formally recognised as a commerce union within the UK in 2006, for collective bargaining, though virtually all of the cleaners are actually members.
ICM is a part of the Compass Group, and the IWW level out this had pre-tax earnings of £581 million within the final yr and paid its chairman Sir Roy Gardner £477,000 pa. Additionally they say that Gardner is a significant donor to Conservative Social gathering funds, and gave £50,000 to Cameron’s election marketing campaign.
At this time police had arrived prematurely of the protest and have been stationed in small teams at every of the store entrances. Behind these on the foremost entrance watching the rally cleaners identified to me one of many JLP administration who scurried away as quickly as he noticed my digital camera pointing in his course – however not earlier than I had photographed him.
Regardless of talks which have dragged on for some years, John Lewis nonetheless refuses to just accept that it ought to deal with its cleaners with the identical decency as its different staff, hiding behind the truth that they aren’t the precise employers though the cleaners work of their retailer and are important to its operating.
The cleaners have been employed by ICM on the authorized minimal wage, greater than two kilos an hour under the London Dwelling Wage, a determine representing the minimal wanted to dwell in London. That is calculated yearly by the Decision Basis, overseen by the Dwelling Wage Fee and was in 2012 backed by each London Mayor Boris Johnson and Prime Minister David Cameron.
The rally on the pavement in entrance of the store was peaceable however energetic and noisy and obtained quite a lot of help from buyers passing by on the busy road together with John Lewis clients. The cleaners have been to strike once more the next Friday with additional protests outdoors the shop then and on each Saturday afternoon.
Friday protest Cleaners Strike at John Lewis
Saturday protest John Lewis cleaners step up protest
Tags: Bahrain, Bahraini prisoners, bearskin, busby, cleaners, cleaners strike, merciless bear hunts, lower in hours, lower in jobs, deposits, Guards, headwear, residence seekers, ICM, IWW, Jeremy Corbyn, JLP, John Lewis, John Lewis Partnership, letting brokers, letting brokers rip-off, residing wage, London, London Dwelling Wage, minimal wage, oursourcing, companions, PETA, peter Marshall, police, personal renters, protest, rally, launch of prisoners, rip-off, spare the bears
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