We should not forget that whilst we have major national strike action in the City of Westminster along Praed St, Paddington by Rail and hospital workers over the past year at both Paddington Railway station and St Marys Hospital, lets not forget those action taken more locally by traffic wardens and housing officers.

The first local action involves parking wardens who are on the front line of road rage from car owners whilst bringing in a substantial income for councils like @RBKC and @CityWestminster So NSL should be offering them a decent liveable wage anyway. This while they have made £39 million on this contract from the Westminster City Council while bringing tens of millions into the Council coffers. Parking wardens in both boroughs do a tough job for low pay and contractor NSL need to get round the table and make a fair pay offer as soon as possible. This looks as though it will be resolved in the near future in Westminster City Council and hope this appears also to Royal Borough of Kensington as well. So it was good to meet with many of the workforce over the past few weeks during their dispute and listen to their concerns.

At the same time, housing workers at St Mungo’s are at strike whilst they receive extra grants from City Hall, SW1 for work with street homeless, yet they are forcing poverty wages on their street workers. This while St Mungo’s has £22 million reserves and senior management have six figure salaries like for the CEO and others. 

So do join they picket lines this morning at Rochester Row, SW1 in front of St Mungos offices.  They and the traffic wardens deserve decent pay rises in the worst cost of living crisis for a generation and l trust locals will support them.