Delivery Riders Strike and South London 'Dark Kitchens'

Notes from Below report on the recent food delivery riders strike:

'On Friday 2 February thousands of food delivery riders, demanding a pay rise, took strike action against all of the apps, in over 90 zones across London, Brighton, Liverpool, Bath and Glasgow. The strike demanded a pay increase. In 2017, Deliveroo paid a minimum £4 per delivery. Now, they pay a minimum of £3.15 to mopeds and £2.80 to bikes. That is a 40% real terms pay cut. Uber Eats have made similar changes.

This was the biggest strike yet in food delivery in the UK and it shook the management of the apps. Across many areas, riders focused locally and organised pickets to shut down dark kitchens and key restaurants...

20 riders picketed the editions kitchen in Forest Hill. When more riders arrived at the kitchen and learnt about the strike, most stopped working and joined in. Only a couple tried to pick up, and before long the manager had turned off the app. Nothing went in or out for hours. Most riders agree a pay rise won’t be won in a single strike; they’re ready for a longer campaign. A few days after the strike, deliveries seem to be paying more than they did. The rates have been calculated upwards a bit'

The Forest Hill site mentioned is in the Dulwich Business Centre, Malham Road SE23 and is one of a number of 'Deliveroo Editions' dark kitchens. Essentially these are  anonymous industrial units managed by Deliveroo where under one roof different restaurant brands use separate kitchen spaces to prepare food.  The Forest Hill/Honor Oak one makes food for Coqfighter , Zing Zing , Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Dishoom and Pho. Another one is in British Wharf, Landmann Way SE14 with food vendors including Jacob's Kitchen, Shake Shack,, Poke Shack, Remedy Kitchen, Jude's Ice Cream and Bleecker Burger. This site is known as Bermondsey 1, not far away at 145 Ormside Street, SE15 is Bermondsey 2 with Dishoom , Wing-Stop, Tao Tao Ju and Pho.

Deliveroo's kitchens have been mapped by Autonomy, and they have also researched this phenomenon noting that Deliveroo are just one of the businesses operating this model.  Foodstars, another big operator, has kitchens locally at 107 Ormside Street SE15 (off Ilderton Road) and at 81 Enid Street SE16.

With more strikes likely these places will be a focus as busy places where large numbers of delivery riders are constantly coming and going.

(below - pickets at Forest Hill Deliveroo kitchen last week, photo from Callum Cant on twitter.

Update: On Valentine's Day (14 February 2024) there was another successful strike, couriers blocked Westminster Bridge and there was a picket  - pictured below - of the Deliveroo dark kitchen on Ormside Street (picture again from Callum Cant)

NHS Physios on Strike: 'F**ck praise, we need a raise'

Physiotherapists are the latest group of NHS workers taking strike action in the cost of living crisis. Their strike on 26 January 2023 was well supported at South London Hospitals. I visited the picket line at Guys Hospital:

'if you're happy to exploit NHS workers and you know it clap your hands'

 'F**ck praise, we need a raise'

Pickets were also out at St Thomas' and Lewisham Hospital

St Thomas' Hospital - photo by @EmilyAHickson on twitter
 

Lewisham picket (photo from @aminamangera1 on twitter)

 

Strike against job cuts at Goldsmiths

A good turn out at Goldsmiths College in New Cross today at a rally to mark the start of a three week strike by members of the University and College Union against threatened job cuts.

Goldsmiths UCU say: 'Goldsmiths Senior Management Team (SMT) is planning mass staff redundancies across departments this term, as part of a wider scheme of redundancies to be rolled out over two years. Management has informed us that it plans to cut 52 jobs this year: 20 academics in English & Creative Writing and History, and 32 professional services staff. The survival of courses in the departments of History and English and Creative Writing are in serious jeopardy, and the professional services cuts (to staff in timetabling, student support and other areas) risk causing chaos and harming student experience. 

This is part of what SMT terms ‘The Recovery Plan’: an attempt to use job cuts to improve the College’s finances. Goldsmiths UCU (GUCU) argues this is a bad plan, both in terms of the financial impacts and the injustice of the proposed job cuts themselves. Senior management also claims these cuts are required by the banks due to a deal that was struck with Lloyds Bank and Natwest bank, negotiated by the consultancy firm KPMG, committing to £4million of staff cuts this year followed by £2million next year'.

The strike will continue until December 13th 2021, with daily pickets and teach-out sessions (details here)

'We demand the right to live a little longer' - The 1937 Bus Strike in South London

The London Bus Strike in 1937 saw Transport and General Workers Union members walk out demanding a reduction in the length of their working day from 8 to 7.5 hours. 30,000 bus workers were employed by the the London Passenger Transport Board (made up of private companies), and the strike was solidly supported, starting on 1 May. The Daily Worker summarised the strikers' case:

'"We demand the right to live a little longer" With this unanswerable claim the London busmen support their claim for a 30 minute reduction in their working day of eight hours... That the health of busmen is affected and their lives shortened by existing conditions of labour is not an exaggerated claim, but a plain statement of fact... during the five years ended 1935, 3,785 busmen left the industry... Of these 877 died at an average age of 52, while 1,006 were discharged through ill health at an average age of 46 years... This is the story of speeding up. To safeguard their health the bus-men ask that their working day be reduced by 30 minutes. In making this moderate claim the workers point out that the safety of millions of people, whose lives are daily placed in their hands, is bound up with the winning of this claim. The employers maintain that the claim cannot be met on financial grounds, yet last year alone a profit of £7,474,000 was made by the undertaking' (DW, 30 April 1937).

The Central Bus Committee of strikers called for tram and trolley bus workers to join the strike, but the Union Executive, headed by Ernest Bevin, refused this and called off the strike after four weeks without the main demand being  met.

In South East London, the union seems to have been organised in two areas. Division A1 covered the bus garages at Camberwell, Nunhead and Old Kent Road.  The Daily Worker reported on some of the activities that kept the strikers occupied:

• 'men are well occupied with concerts and whist drives. Mass  meeting on Friday at the Co-op Hall, Rye Lane (DW 14 May 1937)
• Cabaret and dance at Oliver Goldsmiths School, march  from Camberwell to Peckham planned (DW 20 May 1937)
• Demo planned from Wren Road, Camberwell Green. 'free hair cut service by local talent instituted in Nunhead' (DW 21 May 1937)
• 'The boys are all in good spirits. Holding cricket match this afternoon, Peckham Rye and a concert on Friday at the Co-op Hall' (DW 27 May 1937)

Division A3 covered the garages at Plumstead, Sidcup, Catford and Bromley. Activities here included a 'Splendid demonstration to Lewisham' from Eltham Green (DW 20th and 21st May 1937).

The site of the old Nunhead bus garage on Nunhead Lane, near to Peckham Rye:

A plaque on the building reads: 'On this site stood a Garage for the Steam buses whichh the National Steam Car Company Limited opened in 1911. The Clock tower is a replica of the one which existed until 1999' 

Nunhead Bus garage seems to have been quite a militant workplace. Workers there were active in the 1926 General Strike, with the Camberwell Strike Bulletin (10 May 1926)  reporting that 'On Sunday morning, about 400 strikers from the Nunhead Bus Garage paraded in military formation to the Central Hall, Peckham, where a Church Service was held. All the men wore 1914–18 War Decorations – many of them wearing as many as six medals'.  In 1935, an unofficial bus workers strike started at Nunhead and spread to involve 5,000 workers. The garage was closed by London Transport in 1954 though it continued as a private coach depot into the 1970s and was used as a location in the final series of  popular early 70s sitcom 'On the Buses'. The building was demolished to make way for flats in 1999.

Poster Workshop 1968-71: North Peckham strike and Catford reggae festival

The Poster Workshop was a radical screenprinting project 'set up in a basement at 61 Camden Road, Camden Town, London N1, in the summer of 1968. It was carried along on the wave of rebellion sweeping the world at that time, and was inspired in part by the Atelier Populaire which had resulted from the occupation of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, in May ‘68'. It continued until 1971 by which time more than 200 posters had been produced for and with groups including: 'GLC (Greater London Council) tenants’ associations, protesting against steep rent rises; striking workers at the Dagenham Ford plant; Anti-Apartheid groups; Civil Rights, freedom and liberation movements from all over the world; anti Vietnam War groups; Black Power movements; California Farm Workers Union; the GLC fire brigade; CND (the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament); International Socialists (now Socialist Worker); Young Communists; radical film and theatre companies; Situationists, King Mob, and many different student organisations' (see history here).

A selection of the posters are featured in the current London 1968 exhibition at Tate Britain, and all can be browsed online. For the purposes of this website I was interested to see if there was any South London content in the overall archive - not too much as you might expect for a Camden-based project, but a few windows into the past.

There are two posters that seem to relate to a strike at a Bovis construction site in Peckham - I believe this must have been during the building of the North Peckham Estate for which Bovis were the building contractor (see Municipal Dreams),

It appears that the basis of the dispute was a demand for some kind of productivity bonus payment scheme which the strikers obviously believed Bovis could well afford to pay!

On a different tack there was a poster for a reggae festival at Catford Coop Hall (22 Brownhill Road SE6). Think this must have been on Easter Monday 1969, as that's the only time during period Print Workshop was open that April 7th fell on a non-working day - and it was all day festival. Artists included Steve and the Succession and 'Count Neville Musical Enchanter'. I believe Count Neville ran a Bristol-based sound system in this era.

Strike and Corruption at New Cross Steam Engine Factory

Bunnett and Corpe was a 19th century engineering firm with a factory in New Cross Road. The Post Office London Directory, 1843, described them as 'engineers and patentees of the concentric steam engine, and of revolving iron shutters' with an office at 26 Lombard Street and factory in New Cross.


In 1865 there was a strike at the factory, as recorded in the Kentish Mercury (18 November 1865)


'It is with regret that we record that a “strike" has taken place in the well-known, and for very many years past, well conducted firm (now a limited liability company) of Messrs. Bunnett and Corpe, New Cross Road. Under the new management, a certain code of rules has been adopted, hitherto unknown at the works (although in vogue at a neighbouring firm), and which rules were felt to be repugnant to and subversive of the interests of the workmen, the principal objection to which is that any defect in the work done is to be made good out of the wages of the person employed. A general meeting of the men employed was held on Tuesday, at which the new roles were generally condemned, and as the company refuses to yield as regards the points in dispute, a “turn out” has taken place, and some 150 workmen remain idle'. 

 

Interestingly a decade before, the firm's foreman at the New Cross Road factory was accused of a fraud that involved him personally pocketing deductions from workers' wages. John William Stuart had been working there for 18 years for at least 12 of which he had been on the make. It seems he was in control of the firm's payroll, and received a sum each week to pay the workers at their full wage. But many of the workers had payments deducted for stoppages. So with some creative bookkeeping he was able to siphon of the difference between what the 200-300 workers were actually paid, and the wage budget provided by the company. No doubt this also gave him an incentive as manager to maximise the deductions from worker's wages. On top of that he actually paid the workers a lower wage than he was declaring to the company owners.

Illustrated London News, 22 November 1856

He was also said to have 'been in the habit ofemploying the men and material of the firm in the construction of lathes, &c., and disposing of them for his own individual benefit. The most heartless portion of the fraud, however, is the receipt by Stuart of a sovereign from Mr. Bunnett for an injured carman, which was never paid ove. A search warrant having been obtained, the police proceeded to Stuart's residence, 4, Amersham-road, New-cross, and brought away half a cart load of property (recognised by Mr. Bunnett as belonging to him), consisting of house chandeliers, gas lamps, corrugated iron ornamental articles (including two aquaria well stocked with fish), manufactured from the material of his employers, with which the house was decorated.(London Morning Post, Tuesday, November 18, 1856).

Bunnett and Corpe  was one of a number of engineering firms which flourished in the area in this period. As described by  Geoffrey Crossick in 'An Artisan Elite in Victorian Society: Kentish London 1840-1880' (though I think it is may be aerror that he names the firm as Bunnett and Forbes in this section):

Source: Google Books

 

Strike at Goldsmiths

I've been down to the picket line at Goldsmiths in New Cross a couple of times in the last week to show support to the striking lecturers and other college staff. They have been taking part in a national strike which will continue next week unless there is some movement from employers in the next few days over their threats to reduce pensions.

As the union (UCU) explains:

'We are taking strike action to defend our right to a fair pension. University employers want to end guaranteed pensions and reduce retirement income for all. University staff have always accepted pay levels that are lower than comparably skilled professions, partly because we had a decent pension. Now our right to a well-earned retirement is under attack.

What employers' hardline proposals would mean:

Final pensions would depend on how the stock market performs not on contributions.

A reduction in retirement benefits by between 20% and 40% depending on grade and length of service. A typical lecturer stands to lose around £10,000 a year

The worst pensions in the education sector, far worse than those available to both school teachers and staff in 'new' universities

A recruitment and retention crisis as staff seek better financial security elsewhere'.

The strike at Goldsmiths have been well supported, with talks and appearances from Paul Mason, Dawn Foster, Gary Younge and others, performance art from students and lots more. Follow Goldsmiths UCU on twitter for details.

'Against the slow cancellation of our future'

Junior Doctors Strike - it's not all about the money

photo from Dr Tony O'Sullivan on twitter

Pickets were out at hospitals across the country yesterday - and will be again today - in the 4th strike in the ongoing Junior Doctors dispute.  In South East London that included Lewisham Hospital (pictured above) and Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich. Simon Pirani, who was at Woolwich, has sent us this report:

'Junior doctors picketed Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich this morning in protest at the Tory government’s attempt to impose a new contract. Together with local supporters (including me) they formed a group of about 20 at the main gate. Patients on their way in to appointments wished them well; drivers honked and waved.

 

Women doctors on the picket line were especially incensed at the results of an equality impact assessment, released by the government last week, which show that the new contracts will disproportionately disadvantage women. They were also angry about the way that the contract terms discriminate against junior doctors working part-time – many of whom are women with children.

 

The pickets hope that the threat of all-out strike action, on 26-27 April, will persuade the government to back down from imposing the contract ... or at least to put it out for consultative review.

 

My impression was that the junior doctors’ dispute has almost nothing to do with the level of pay. These are people who spend up to 15 years training for a demanding (and ultimately well paid) profession. They already work all the shifts that god sends, and have to move hospitals regularly. It is the way that the contract is being rammed through – and the way that it takes unsocial hours working for granted – that infuriates them.

 

Anger is also generated by the government’s dictatorial handling of negotiations with the BMA, its insulting propaganda (“extra deaths at the weekends” and all those lies) and its bullying demeanour. On top of that, the new contract is obviously part of a long continuum of changes aimed at trashing the NHS as a publicly-provided service and making it a privatised business.

 

The pickets will be at QEH again on Tuesday 26 April, at 8.0 am, when they will be on all-out strike. Please join them'.

 

Striking junior doctors in Woolwich

 

NHS Cleaners strike at four South London mental heatlh units

Domestics and hostesses employed by private contractor Aramark at four sites of South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLAM) are out on strike today, seeking a living wage of £10per hour and an end to two tier arrangements on sick pay and shift allowances. The strike involves GMB members at  the Maudsley, Lambeth, Bethlem and Ladywell mental health service sites - the latter at Lewisham Hospital, where strikers were joined on the picket line by the indefatigable Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign.

Junior Doctors Strike in South London

There was good support across South London for today's strike by Junior Doctors against proposed new contract conditions.

Pickets at Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell photo from Unite the Resistance on twitter

Guys Hospital

St Thomas Hospital - photo by @laurafleur on twitter

Croydon University Hospital - photo from @ger_ogara on twitter

Lewisham Hospital - photo from @Allan_Katie on twitter

If you want to know more about the reasons for the strike and why doctors believe that they are not just fighting for their terms and conditions but for patient safety and for the NHS itself, check out the video from The Guardian filmed at Lewisham earlier today.

1915 London Tram Strike in New Cross

A hundred years ago this week, tram workers in London were sacked for going on strike and sent off to war. The London tram strike was prompted by the rising cost of living - the 7,000 strikers demanded a 'war bonus'.  The response of the employer, London County Council (LCC), was to sack all men of military age, telling them to volunteer for the armed forces.

The strike of drivers and conductors started out on Friday 14 May as an unofficial walkout at the New Cross depot - now the bus garage on New Cross Road - and soon spread across London (Sunday Mirror, 16 May 1915). The strike united workers from two rival unions - the London and Provincial Union of Licensed Vehilce Workers (known as the "red button men" ) and the "blue button" Amalgamated Union of Tramway Vehilce Workers'  (Daily Mirror - Monday 17 May 1915).

Pickets at New Cross depot (Daily Mirror, 17 May 1915)

The trams were the main source of transport for many workers to the Woolwich Arsenal, and it was reported that  'The New Cross men have made an offer to the L.C.C., which has been refused, to work cars each day to Woolwich for war munition workers without pay. The one condition was imposed — that the Council should allow the men to travel free'  (Liverpool Echo - Tuesday 18 May 1915)

Some trams did run to Woolwich:  'Extraordinary scenes were witnessed in South London yesterday morning as a  result of the tram strike. Heavy rain had been falling since an early hour, and thousands of people waited at different points in the hope of getting omnibuses, but the majority were doomed to disappointment. At New Cross, where cars labelled ' War munitions workers only" were running to and from Woolwich, great resentment was occasioned when only those producing Arsenal passes were allowed to board the cars'  (Newcastle Journal, 19 May 1915).  Strikers picketed the New Cross depot throughout the strike.

New Cross Road in the strike, by the depot (Sunday Pictorial, 16 May 1915)

On the last day of the strike, 'At New Cross about 1,200 strikers attended the Hatcham Liberal Club, when a resolution was adopted expressing confidence in the joint committee of the unions and determination 'to fight to a finish'.  One speaker complained that what was started a a 'strike' had now been made a 'lock-out' by the Highways Committee of the L.C.C. The men were advised to go back in the belief that their grievances would be dealt at once, but the L.C.C. were really taking the place of the Government by insisting on conscription' (Birmingham Daily Post, 1 June 1915).  The Daily Herald also reported 'a meeting in the Five Bells, at New Cross, the storm centre of the tram-men's strike'  (Daily Herald - Saturday 22 May 1915)

The strike took place at a time of increasing social tensions. In the same week there were anti-German riots in different parts of the country, in which shops run by Germans (or those with German-sounding names) were attacked, including in New Cross and Deptford:  'One result of the riots is a severe bread shortage. Near New Cross Gate so many bakers’ shops have been smashed that the police had be called yesterday to regulate the crowd which surged round the only shop in the neighbourhood where bread could be obtained' (Birmingham Daily Post - Monday 17 May 1915).

London Bus Strike- South London Picket Scenes

Thousands of bus workers went on strike for 24 hours last Tuesday (13 January) as part of a campaign to end pay inequality across the company's bus network. 18 bus operators across London pay different rates for the same jobs, with a disparity of over £3 an hour.

There were pickets at all 70 bus garages, including across South London.

Pickets at Norwood garage

Pickets on New Cross Road (photo from @Joe_Dromey)

But the liveliest picket seems to have been in Camberwell, where the presence of a mobile sound system helped create a party atmosphere:

Hatcham Liberal Club 1891: New Cross Meeting for Jailed Union Leader

From the Evening Express, 9 April 1891, a report of a public meeting held at the Hatcham Liberal Club, New Cross Road in support of Joseph Havelock Wilson (1859-1929), secretary of the Seamen and Firemen's Union. J H Wilson had been nominated as the Liberal parliamentary candidate for Deptford, but was unable to attend this meeting as he had been jailed for "unlawful assembly" after being arrested during a strike in Cardiff. The meeting was presided  over by Dr Richard M. Pankhurst, the Liberal Candidate for Rotherhithe (he was unsuccessful), founder of the Women's Franchise League with his wife Emmeline Pankhurst and father of suffragist militants Christabel and Sylvia. Richard Haldane MP, also there, was a Liberal then an Labour politician and one of the founders, with the Webbs, of the London School of Economics. Edward Grey MP was Liberal foreign secretary at the start of the First World War.

After release from prison, Wilson transferred his candidacy to Middlesborough where he was elected as an independent labour MP in 1892, though he later became a Liberal MP. 

(the Hatcham Liberal Club at this time was at Portland House, 202 New Cross Road, which I believe was more or less opposite what is now New Cross Gate station. Not sure when it moved to its later location on Queens Road)

South London Strikes and Protests Round Up

I haven't had time to cover these in detail, so here's a quick round up of recent strikes and protests in the South London area.

Firefighters have been continuing their strikes against changes to their pensions:

Striking firefighters at East Greenwich fire station, May 2 2014
(photo from @akaDanielLawrie  on twitter)

Pickets at Plumstead fire station, May 2 2014

Workers at the Ritzy cinema in Brixton have been staging strikes demanding that those employed by the Picturehouse chain get paid the London Living Wage (£8.80 an hour; the current hourly rate for most Ritzy staff is £7.24).The most recent action closed the Ritzy on May Day.

Strikers outside the Ritzy in Brixton on May 1 (photo from @ritzylivingwage)

On the same day, staff at Lambeth College went on strike against changes to their pay and conditions. The day was due to be the start of an all out strike, but this has been postponed following an injunction  by the college. Lecturers union UCU has now declared this a dispute of national significance and called a national demonstration in support of Lambeth College staff on Saturday 17 May:

Lambeth College strikers on 1 May (photo from ISN)

Workers on the London Underground have been striking against plans to close ticket offices at tube stations:

Pickets at Elephant and Castle tube station on 29 April 2014
(photo from https://twitter.com/MPDNUT)

Teachers at schools across the area walked out on the national strike on March 26th over attacks on their pay and conditions:

Lewisham banner on the 10,000 strong demonstration in central London on 26 March 2014

Strikers picket Sydenham School on 26 March
(photo from https://twitter.com/MPDNUT)

On 29 March, there was a protest in Lewisham town centre as part of the national Fast Food Rights day of action for workers rights and against zero hours contracts in the fast food industry. 

Fast Food Rights action at Subway in Lewisham

Lewisham Anti Racist Action Group (banner pictured) joined around 10,000 people on the Stand Up to Racism and Fascism demonstration in central London on 22 March:

There was a strike on March 12th by staff in Lewisham Council's school truancy/attendance service against cuts to the service.