LSE Cleaners Protest, Lisa Arrested: Wednesday fifteenth March 2017 was the primary day of a two-day strike by cleaners on the LSE in help of their marketing campaign demanding equal sick pay, holidays and pensions and many others to related staff immediately employed by the LSE and an finish to bullying and discrimination by their employer Noonan.
I had photographed the beginning of their marketing campaign at a gathering led by their union, the United Voices of the World, as part of the LSE’s 3-day ‘Resist’ Pageant on twenty ninth September 2016 and various protests on the LSE since then.
On fifteenth March the cleaners had a picket line because the early morning – cleaners begin work whereas most of us are nonetheless in mattress – and I joined them for a lunchtime rally. Their marketing campaign had a substantial amount of help from college students on the LSE and had a big banner ‘L$E: The London College of Exploitation‘.
Others who had come to help the cleaners included Grim Chip of Poets on the Picket Line and LSE teachers Lisa McKenzie and David Graeber and some from Class Struggle. However there have been passionate and efficient speeches from various the cleaners, together with Mildred Simpson, one of many LSE cleaners and others within the UVW.
On the finish of the rally, the protesters marched by the campus and throughout Kingsway to the constructing which homes the LSE Estates Workplace the place a big group walked into the lobby demanding to see the Estates Supervisor. Some have been carrying mops and buckets to indicate their help for the cleaners.
Safety got here to speak with the protesters, although the protesters have been making an excessive amount of noise to listen to them and the protest continued with a brief speech from UVW Basic Secretary Petros Elia to clarify when the lobby was being occupied.
Finally the protesters sat down and waited, nonetheless making a number of noise . Folks working within the constructing have been nonetheless in a position to go away or enter the constructing unhindered strolling previous the protest – however would hear and skim why the noisy protest was going down.
Finally police arrived and talked with the constructing safety and a number of the protesters who quickly started dancing within the lobby to music on the general public tackle system the UVW had introduced.
Extra police arrived and determined to cease individuals getting into or leaving the places of work. They talked with UVW Basic Secretary Petros Elia who informed them it was a peaceable protest and they’d go away after that they had made their level to the LSE amenities supervisor – if the police might persuade him to speak to them.
Finally this discuss did happen, although a way again from the lobby the place we might solely see them from a distance. The discuss went on for round 5 minutes, and Petros then returned smiling to inform the protesters that the LSE who had till now been refusing to speak to the cleaners had agreed to a gathering.
The protesters then walked out to hitch those that had been persevering with to protest on the pavement outdoors, they usually ready to finish the protest.
However unexpectedly police moved in and surrounded Lisa McKenzie telling her she was underneath arrest.
They pushed her roughly to the wall of the constructing and handcuffed her pushing away excessively roughly those that tried to cease the arrest and taking her to a ready police van.
Apparently Lisa was being charged with assault on the receptionist when the protesters entered the constructing. I used to be shut behind and neither I nor the opposite protesters noticed any proof of assault by her as she entered the places of work holding one finish of the banner with others.
Everybody was shocked, each by the arrest and by the police violence. The truth that not one of the others holding the banner have been arrested strongly advised that her arrest was politically motivated, most likely attributable to strain from the LSE for her help for the cleaners – she had organised the ‘Resist’ Pageant the place the cleaners marketing campaign had been launched.
Lisa had beforehand been the topic of a clearly political arrest when she was wrongly charged with three offences at a protest in February 2015 whereas she was standing within the Basic Election towards Iain Duncan Smith. Maybe the police have been nonetheless feeling aggrieved after failing signally to realize a conviction. This time they weren’t silly sufficient to take her to courtroom.
Way more from Wednesday fifteenth March 2017 on My London Diary:
LSE cleaners strike and protest
Police arrest Lisa once more
Flickr – Fb – My London Diary – Hull Photographs – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photographs
All images on this web page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to purchase prints or licence to breed.
Tags: Alba, arrest, cleaners, David Graeber, extreme drive, Grim Chip, holidays, L$E, Lisa McKenzie, London, LSE, LSE cleaners, LSE amenities supervisor, march, Mildred Simpson, pensions, peter Marshall, Petros Elia, Poets on the Picket Line, police, police violence, politically motivated arrest, earlier arrest, protest, reinstate Alba, Resist Pageant, sick pay, The London College of Exploitation, unfair dismissal, United Voices of the World, UVW, UVW Basic Secretary
You’ll be able to go away a response, or trackback from your individual website.
#SixOnSaturday for March fifteenth #LoveGardening #SpringFlowers #GardeningX
