27.03.1997

Hillingdon workers shake Pall Mall

Sacked Hillingdon hospital workers shook their class opponents last Friday when they took their struggle to the head office of Pall Mall in Acre Lane, Brixton. A picket of the Pall Mall HQ was supported by Unison members from Greenwich and Liverpool, countering their union leadership’s desertion of the Hillingdon workers. Covent Garden RMT, the London Support Group for the Liverpool Dockers and Magnet Strikers, and the Hillingdon Strikers Support Campaign helped swell the numbers.

Chants of ‘No slave labour, sack Pall Mall’ and ‘Scabs out, workers in’ resounded along Acre Lane, with supporting horns from passing workers in cars. Pall Mall managers, who tried to intimidate the pickets by photographing them, were themselves forced to flee back inside, where they videoed the undeterred workers from an upstairs window.

There will be a benefit showing for the Hillingdon hospital strikers of Ken Loach’s film, Land and freedom, on Tuesday May 6 at Brixton’s Ritzy cinema, just down the road from Pall Mall’s offices.

Tom Ball