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A “DRACONIAN” injunction against striking security guards at Great Ormond Street Hospital gives a “sneak preview” of the Tory policing Bill’s widely condemned crackdown on protests, trade unionists warned today.
The United Voices of the World (UVW) union, representing the outsourced workers at the London children’s hospital, said the High Court’s decision to grant management’s application for an emergency ban on further demonstrations could set a “terrifying NHS precedent.”
The interim order, banning “loud noises” and “vigorous dancing” within 200 metres of the site, was issued on Thursday after the guards, who are employed by Carlisle Support Services, began six weeks of strikes to demand the same working conditions as in-house colleagues.
Any breach of the injunction, which also prohibits “waving banners, playing music, shouting and making rapid or dramatic movements,” is an imprisonable offence, UVW stressed.
It will return to the High Court on Wednesday to contest the “dystopian” order, which the union said was imposed at a hearing of which it was given just eight minutes’ notice.
UVW general secretary Petros Elia told the Morning Star that the move has parallels with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill currently going through Parliament, which includes provisions to ban “noisy protests.”
“This is as serious as it sounds,” he said. “Some judge has just decided, at the stroke of a pen, to make these protests unlawful.
“The pretext is concern for children’s clinical care, but there’ll always be a pretext somewhere.
“If this is allowed to stand, I see it as being something that will fundamentally erode our union and human rights in a way that hasn’t been see in recent years.”
African-born Alain, a striking guard, told the Star: “These type of actions from judges we normally see in Africa, but not in the United Kingdom.
“We cannot display a banner, we cannot carry a flag, we cannot dance – it’s ridiculous. We have to continue to fight.”
Blasting the “absurd” ban, ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who attended a hospital rally last week, demanded bosses “stop wasting money on going to court and negotiate.”
A hospital spokesperson claimed “excessive noise and disruption has left children in tears, families and staff feeling unsafe and clinicians unable to do their jobs.”
Bosses respect the right to strike and protest but felt they had to seek an injunction after UVW refused to agree to “key boundaries” for future demos, the spokesperson added.
