No Justice! No Peace!

By New Worker correspondent

There was joyful militancy, solidarity and rage during the Ministry of Justice strike in London this week. Management called in scabs and the police, but United Voices of the World (UVW) strikers shut down one side of the building and raised hundreds of pounds from supporters. Support staff represented by the mainstream PCS civil service union, and making similar demands, joined the action at the nearby Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) HQ. This was the first co-ordinated strike in Britain between a TUC and a non-TUC union, and the first co-ordinated strike between outsourced workers in government departments.

Workers in the main civil service union, PCS, and UVW, a street union founded in 2014 to represent the mainly outsourced migrant workers of London, picketed the Ministry of Justice and the  BEIS office on Tuesday in support of striking cleaners, receptionists and security guards who are demanding the London Living Wage of £10.55 per hour and parity with civil servants for sick pay and annual leave.

We marched together with our comrades from PCS Union and had a visit from John McDonnell along with Shadow Justice Minister Richard Burgon and local Labour MP Emma Dent Coad. The message to the Ministry of Justice was loud and clear: workers have had enough of poverty wages and they will keep fighting until you start treating them with the dignity and respect they deserve. No justice, no peace.