I have been on two protests in the last week-ish

Wednesday 24th and Wednesday 31st I attended protests with a few hundred other Electricians. There is one organised for Wednesday 7th at the Shard. All over pay cuts, removal of terms and conditions and de-skilling of the industry.
I am asking this out of curiosity, has anybody heard about it anywhere or seen anything of it?

better red than dead

Notrhing until you posted it.

PaulCAFC

Nothing - sorry! Seems like a good reason to protest though

RedArmySE7

Nope, sadly worthwhile peaceful protests at a reasonable time get very little press coverage.

Hense why the fireman decided to strike on Bonfire Night as they knew it would get a reaction, they'd been striking for the previous two weekends and no one knew or noticed a thing.

Anyway keep at it.

stilladdicted

I didn't know anything about it either.

charltonkeston

No, nor will we untill something tragic happens. Like someone gets hurt or property is broken.
Nothing to do with you and I'm really on your side here but I wonder what support electrians will get from the TUC given your unions past record? (News International dispute amonst others)

RedArmySE7

Out of interest how many have you had on the protests?

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

All the protests so far are not union backed. As the companies have not actually put anything in place yet Unite cant act due to the anti union laws in place. So officail action cant take place until the the companies make their first move, which is annoying. The protests are being organised by the men on site. I very very very much doubt there will be any backing from the TUC as this isn't a result of Government cuts but we will see.

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

300+ at both

nth london addick

i think its proberly the mosty worthy protest of the year, fair play to you all its tough out on tools right now

 

 

good luck

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

Westfield got the police in and we were dispersed by 9am

stilladdicted

May I ask what reason was given for your dispersal?  Were you on private property?

nth london addick

Westfield is being protected against every thing they seem to be a law unto themselves right now, very difficult to get in and out of

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

We were at the site entrance to soon to be open the Westfield Shopping centre. Just outside the tube station. So it was public property. Mr Westfield was going a bit mental about us being there and after 3 hours they told us that we all had to go and moved us all on. Even the old bugger Tony Benn turned up to give a speech

Addicted

Nothing that ive seen im afraid mate, not even in the metro who today kindly reported about a man in NZ who creates sculptures out of roadkill... Thanks Metro!

Maybe you should smash the place up a bit, seems to get people coverage

Stig

Good luck with your protests.  I have to be honest, I haven't heard about them.  My experience though is that demos have to be huge and/or violent (I am not advocating this) before they make the news.  The press never seem too interested in, here's a few nice people with a genuine grievance.

smiffyboy

I've been away on holiday but have received text messages from several friends keeping me informed of these protests and they have been attending now that I'm back I shall attend the next won as this is sooooo important that it's stopped, otherwise the electrical game will be finished

DRF

Is it a bunch of electricians doing it on their own behalf or is it being organised by a organisation?

I work for a trade union and can tell you a lot about how hard it is to get peaceful protests covered. However, I do have a number of contacts of people who would happily give you some coverage if you want to PM me.

Edit - sorry just read that its not union backed. If you want some help getting publicity then give me a shout.

charltonkeston

If there is a dispute over pay cuts, removal of terms and conditions and de-skilling your union should be backing you now.
It does not mean you having to take industrial action just start getting your union to start some talks with the employer, maybe forcing their hand in doing so.
Not sure I would want a de-skilled/semi-skilled spark playing around with electrics. That must be a real health and saftey issue not a Bob Crow one.

I'm a Unite member formerly AEEU formerly AEU, thought they were and still are bloody hopeless.
Wish you luck but we dont have strong unions anymore, for whatever reason.

RodneyCharltonTrotta

Try contacting LBC radio if you are going to the Shard as Im sure they would publicise it mate.

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

There are eight companies in all clubbing together to bring it in March 2012. The Union are talking to the employers as we speak. But it looks very unliekly that they are going to come to an agreement. LBC were contacted prior to Westfield. We did get a piece on the London 24 website about the Westfield protest which was good. First piece on the internet that wasnt by a building news website or the poxy socialist lot.

Uboat

Careful what you wish for - if you do get coverage it will probably be a Daily Mail headline 'How London Beat the Lunatic Militants'.

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

It would seem that a bunch of sparks protesting at 6:30 in the morning are the most docile, special looking lot about.

Clem_Snide

I think you should climb the shard and hang a banner from the top........absolute respect for any nutter that would do that!

swords_alive

C.Walsh'sLoveChild said:

 We did get a piece on the London 24 website about the Westfield protest which was good. First piece on the internet that wasnt by a building news website or the poxy socialist lot.

Socialists will usually support a worker's strike. Why do you think Tony Benn turned up. You will need all the friends you can get the longer this goes on and taking a swipe at fellow workers or the left is the quickest way to nowhere

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

I wasnt taking a swipe as such.  They are welcomed as they boost the numbers. Just rather annoying when one of them jumped on the mic and started trying to justify the riots due to the government

Plaaayer

I thought they may be on strike when I switched the bathroom light on this morning and nothing happened. May just be the bulb though?

SheffieldRed

Another who had not heard.

CWLC - what did T Benn have to say out of interest

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

Being of a man of 86, he did struggle a bit but basically telling us that we have to spread the word. All unite together. United we stand, divided we fall. We can beat this is we all stick together. Your union may not be here today but they are still your union. All join up and get everyone to join up as when the Union do act you will all need to back them. and gave a brief history of Unions, the working man and the Labour party
 

Some more pictures and info can be found on this blog

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

and just in case any of you have a couple minutes. There is a petition to try and attempt to bring this to the governments attention set up by a friend of mine

PETITION

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

@DRF you have mail

Addickted

Are you employed or self employed sparks?

RedArmySE7

Tony Benn is a legend.

Petition signed mate.

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

Technically self employed but I am really working under false/bogus self employment, which is illegal. But the government don't really mind as we are working in construction, so are  therefore scum

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

@RedArmySE7 you know some sparks, can you forward on the blog and the petition to them for me please mate. Cheers

buckshee

three words really 

cheap foreign labour

Until we have a goverment that puts into place something for the building industry which allows people in their last year of school to take one day a week to train rather than waste time on something they haven't got the interest in we will have a shortage of decent tradesmen which means we have to have the cheap (in some case not properly skilled) foreign labour.

I spend at least 25% of my week putting right shoddy work I'd be ashamed to put my name to

Addickted

C.Walsh'sLoveChild said:

Technically self employed but I am really working under false/bogus self employment, which is illegal. But the government don't really mind as we are working in construction, so are  therefore scum

Ah. There's the problem. Your 'employers' can do what they want then.

Why on earth did you take this on as a skilled sparks?

smiffyboy

These problems all stem from the influx of cheap foreign labour, and the big main contractors trying to get things built as cheap as possible by de-skilling us so that they can use them to do parts of our work.

Cordoban Addick

I don't suppose your political paper is called Iskra is it?


Sorry thats a bit obscure, perhaps one for Leroy.

Good luck, don't be intimidated.
My nan used to put Tony Benn up when politicians used to go around actually speaking to people at proper meetings.

BlackForestReds

Cordoban Addick said:

I don't suppose your political paper is called Iskra is it?

You don't need to be a bright spark to work out the pun there...

Uboat

Well, to be fair, you do need to know Russian.

BlackForestReds

Uboat said:

Well, to be fair, you do need to know Russian.

Or Russian history.

SheffieldRed

Uboat said:

Well, to be fair, you do need to know Russian.

or access to google

Uboat

You're both right.  I withdraw my previous remark.

Cordoban Addick

Russian history in my case. When Pravda meant something.

better red than dead

Bit in a column in the Mirror today giving some of the background, but nothing specific about your protests.

Stig

Signed.

Eirik Bakke

Signed

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

Thanks to those of you signing the petition

@RedArmySE7 Jeremy Corbin MP and Bob Crow will be at The Shard on the 7th September

MuttleyCAFC

Good luck -haven't heard about it but nobody should be too surprised about that.

Robbo on the wing

What time at the shard?