Socialist Appeal - 6th May Olympic Workers Demo Report

6th May Olympic Workers Demo Report

By Steve Kelly

Wednesday, 20 May 2009

6th of May was a long time coming - from the Unite activists' meeting held on 16th March, when it was agreed we should demonstrate outside the Olympic site in Stratford. It was organised and planned by rank and file construction workers despite the tactics of the official unions GMB and Unite who did their best to stop it. Shame on you Mr Simpson and Mr Kenny.

What a great day of action it turned out to be. Around 500 workers descended on the site at 6.30am from all over the country, many travelling down from Scotland and the north over night. Well done and top marks to all who made it.

The coppers tried to pen the workers in. They were having none of it. The demo was over the exploitation of migrant workers, the fact that companies on the Olympics and other sites are not paying the agreed union rates, poor health and safety, excessive use of agency labour and the blacklist. It was a lively demo with many great speakers from the rank and file workers as well as Visteon strikers, and Bob Crow (General Secretary of the RMT union) in solidarity and a local councillor.

We then headed to Parliament for a lobby over blacklisting and 200 of the workers marched into Parliament. Oliver Cromwell must have been well impressed! Two excellent meetings took place with John McDonnell, Michael Clapham and Kelvin Hopkins, Everyone had their say about the scandal of the blacklist, and made it quite clear that it would not be swept under the carpet.

All in all a great day rounded off by a few pints of Guinness. Here’s to the next one.

Steve Kelly, Unite London construction branch.

Click here to see a selection of photos from the demo.

Click here to watch a short video.

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