Monday, March 15, 2010

Notting Hill Housing Strike

Today was the first 24 hour period of strike action in Notting Hill Housing Trust. There was a fantastic picket and lots of active support for the Strike. We estimate that over 100 members came to join the protest outside Notting Hill headquarters alone.

Interestingly, the vast majority of the strikers were women who of course will tend to have by far the most to lose if these anti-family policies are scrapped.

Shame about the Notting Hill CMT member who tried to deliberately provoke the pickets by declaring loudly he was “very happy to cross the picket line!” with a big smirk on his face. No wonder the organisation is in such a mess with folk like him in charge!

There was plenty of press interest and messages of support from various trade unions and encouragement from other UNISON branches and trade councils. We were next to a busy street and spent a lot of time encouraging passing motorists to “toot” their horn in support. There was a very good atmosphere amongst the pickets. This being "Notting Hill" we even had a portable CD player blasting out Bob Marley songs.

This was a good first day and hopefully management will come to their senses and start to negotiate. If not - we will be back.

Check out "All Together Worse" for further information and pictures.

2 comments:

donpaskini said...

Hi John,

Just to let you know - I've linked to you from Liberal Conspiracy - let me know if you'd like to do a guest post about the strike, donpaskini AT liberalconspiracy DOT org

John Gray said...

Hi

Many thanks - will do as soon as poss.