On The Road

The mostly Latin-American cleaning, security and maintenance workers employed by Cofely GDF-Suez at London University have already succeeded in their battle for the London Living Wage. They are all members of the independent IWGB union, which this week called a three day strike to demand union recognition and improved conditions of employment, and in protest at job losses. On Tuesday the union's 3 Cosas (Three Things) Campaign took to the streets of Bloomsbury in an open-top bus (above) before moving on to a rally outside Parliament (below), and unannounced visits to fellow workers at the Royal Opera House, and to the Cofely GDF-Suez Islington office. It feels like a campaign that is going to win.  More pictures here.

Foodbank

Patrick Butler reports in the Guardian this week that the government has launched an inquiry into the recent explosion of foodbanks, soup kitchens and school breakfast clubs. The country's finest minds will seek to understand why, with falling wages, cuts in benefits, and rising prices, increasing numbers of people are having problems feeding themselves and their families. It's real puzzle.

Foodbank was the result of my own inquiry, conducted last year. It was prompted by outrage that such widespread charitable giving should be necessary in one of the wealthiest countries in the world – particularly one with a well-established welfare system set up to act as a supposed safety net. The video is a quick snapshot of some of the problems faced by users of three London foodbanks, all run under the franchise of the Christian charity the Trussell Trust, and of the work of the volunteers who run them.

Foodbanks shouldn't be necessary, and many of the volunteers feel the same way. Watching these (mostly church-based) charities giving handouts to the needy seems like a throwback to Dickens, and the horrors of pre-welfare state Britain. It is a glimpse of what the country would look like if the coalition government succeeds in its attempt to dismantle state provision, leaving philanthropists and charities to pick up the pieces. A preview of what they mean by 'The Big Society'.

The very existence of these centres is shocking, and I set out to make a critique. But I found it difficult to say anything other than the totally obvious – much like the inevitable outcome of the forthcoming government inquiry – and cut the project short. For although I have strong reservations about the return to church-based welfare provision, I couldn't fault the generous impulse that lies behind it. The video ended up almost looking like a promo, and has been used as such by those that took part. Make of that what you will.

All Work and No Pay

It's good to see Tesco franticly back-tracking in response to protests over its participation in the government's welfare-to-work programme. The campaign against workfare has widespread support and other high street retailers, fearing similar negative publicity, are under pressure to follow suit. Although the issue hit the headlines this week, it's been going on for years – ever since the previous Labour administration introduced Mandatory Work Related Activity as part of its New Deal. That's what's going on in the WH Smith store pictured below.

According to the Fair Pay Network, the average hourly rate for supermarket workers is £6.83, whilst the 'living wage' outside London is £7.20, and in London, £8.30. Low pay is bad enough. No pay is a step too far.

Back to the future

A three hour shift that starts at 5.00am is not for the faint-hearted, but the cleaning team that takes care of the offices, marble staircases and tiled corridors of Islington’s rather elegant Town Hall seem quite content.

Since the expiry of a 10 year contract with private company Kier Building Maintenance in October 2010, the 130 cleaners of borough’s 70 municipal buildings are once again directly employed by the local authority. The transfer back to an in-house service has seen the cleaners’ pay rise significantly to the London Living Wage level of £8.30 an hour, with improved conditions and no job losses. According to Council Leader Catherine West, the new arrangement costs less and, in addition to higher pay, offers the employees job security, access to the council pension scheme and the feeling of being “part of a team”.

It seems that the predictable consequences of the large-scale contracting out of council and other public services introduced by the Conservatives in the 1980s and 1990s, and left unchanged by the New Labour governments that followed, are finally being recognised in some quarters. Other council services in Islington are being reviewed, and further afield, hospital cleaners in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are now all directly employed, in an attempt to halt the disastrous spread of hospital infections. More pictures here.

TESCO: Every little helps

At an assembly marking the 10th anniversary of the Living Wage Campaign last week, Citizens UK launched a campaign to persuade supermarket chain Tesco to pay its workers a Living Wage. The company’s “every little helps” slogan, designed to promote its low prices, applies equally well to the wages of its employees, as was made clear in personal testimony on the impact of the Living Wage on their own lives by individual members.

The community organisation also announced the updated Living Wage rate for London (£8.30 an hour), and for the rest of the UK (£7.20). The National Minimum Wage is £5.93. More pictures here.

London’s Other Workers: multimedia

This multimedia presentation of the London's Other Workers project combines still photos and a recorded interview with Alberto Durango, who has worked as a cleaner since he came to London in 1995 to escape paramilitaries in his native Colombia. In this 3 minute piece he talks about the problems faced by the cleaners who work through the night in the office buildings of London’s financial district.

Putting together still photographs and words, whether written or spoken, can be very powerful. For the written word, the books John Berger made with the Swiss photographer Jean Mohr are a model for many. A Seventh Man, which explores the experiences of southern European migrant workers in north-western Europe, is probably the best known.

What makes them stand out is the way in which the images and text do not refer directly to each other, but run in parallel, expressing complementary aspects of their subjects’ experiences. Berger and Mohr did not use photographs to ‘illustrate’ the text, but allowed them to tell their own related, but different, story.

Something similar can be done with photographs and the spoken word. Technology has moved on since the days of tape-slide, but the produce of digital cameras and sound recorders can be put together to much the same effect. Tape-slide required cumbersome equipment, and its audiences were necessarily small. The modern digitised version makes possible cheap, instant and unlimited distribution via websites, blogs and all the other channels the internet has to offer.