On Thursday night, MRCF took a massive delegation of 60 individuals to the West London Citizens Assembly in Hammersmith Town Hall. The event celebrated the 5 year anniversary of West London Citizens, a chapter organisation of the nationwide organisation, CitizensUK. But more than a celebration, the WLC assembly was a show of the collective power of our communities- both individuals and civil society organisations.
[h4]MRCF brought a team of Digital Activists with us to the assembly to document and highlight several campaigns and issues that we care about. Check out their blogs here:[/h4]
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[h4]The Twitter-verse weas alight with lots of reactions and questions:[/h4]
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- @CitizensUK: Hammersmith Town Hall is full! #WLCAssembly http://instagr.am/p/SkxW/
- @MRCF_london:Crowd seems fed up with cllr mahfouz… Why has it taken 60 years to get anything done? A meeting before March? #wlcassembly #politician
- @TheDressDoctor:Seeking to strengthen relationships with local authorities. Can this ever be a bad thing? #WLCAssembly
- @MRCF_london:#hammersmith & #fulham cllr harry phibbs tries to push ‘free schools’ and #bigsociety? Come on! We are the #bigsociety. #wlcassembly
- @jimpurnell: At #wlcassembly #citizensuk v impressed that Ealing are becoming a living wage council – and now Hounslow too
- @austeni: #WLCAssembly ‘cos the workers are worth it! L’Oreal agrees to Liv Wage!
- @WordsthatMove: RT @QuakerBusiness Good to hear of the successes of London Citizens working towards a London living wage #WLCAssembly #citizensuk
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[h4]CitizensUK has been asking UKBA to let us deliver trainings to their case workers on how to work better with asylum seekers. The assembly was our chance to ask directly for this chance:[/h4]
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- @MRCF_london: And now the first question to the #ukba– will u let us train ur case workers? #wlcassembly #waitingforanswer
- @MRCF_london: #ukba answer- ‘Yes.’ #wlcassembly
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Another significant part of the night was when the representative from the Natural History Museum let us down on stage. Mr. Paul Brereton has been approached by London Citizens over the last few months about the London Living Wage but when the time came to ask, ‘Will you support your employees by paying everyone the London Living Wage?’ he did not come through.
- @MRCF_london: Now is the time for Natural History Museum to pay ALL employees and contractors the London Living wage? Answer? #wlcassembly
- @MRCF_london: ‘Perhaps’… uhh- time to treat all your employees like they have rights! Waiting for ‘data’ is a cop out. #wlcassembly #typicalpolitician
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As I suggested on Twitter, it is not fair to suggest that the London Living Wage campaign isn’t backed up by data. Check out the impact it has had straight from employers and… the data. Maybe he was actually suggesting he hadn’t done his homework!
