In this issue of Notes from Below, we focus on worker centres. Worker centres are place-based organisations that often focus on supporting low-wage or migrant workers who are not already in unions or covered by collective bargaining. They come in many forms, from radical spaces and organising hubs, to NGO projects and charity services.

We have chosen the topic for this issue of Notes from Below for two reasons. First, we think that in the current moment it is important to understand what other forms of organisation can support worker struggles. Most workers are not involved in unions, whether because they have never been asked to join, or because they are excluded from the labour movement in different ways. Second, some of the editors of Notes from Below are involved in a project to support workers organising in Tower Hamlets, East London. The project has access to a shopfront space at Pelican House in the borough. Space is something that is becoming increasingly difficult across the city.

Across this issue, we have brought together a collection of pieces that share experiences of organising through worker centres.

In Organising in Tower Hamlets, Kay Ballard, chair of the Tower Hamlets Trades Council and a member of Unite Community, discusses her extensive experience in organising within Tower Hamlets, highlighting the community’s historical resilience and need for a worker centre. She envisions the centre as a vital resource for employment, welfare, and education support, fostering trust and collaboration among local trade unions and empowering residents to coordinate struggles.

In, Experiments in Worker Organising: from Unite Community to the Immigrant Worker Centre in Montréal, Mostafa Henaway reflects on his experiences with worker organising, focusing on his involvement with Unite Community in Tower Hamlets and the Immigrant Worker Center in Montréal. He discusses the challenges and successes of organising through worker centres, highlighting the importance of building community and solidarity among marginalised workers, particularly immigrants and the unemployed, while emphasising the need for flexible structures that adapt to the evolving landscape of workplace issues.

In The Portuguese Workers Project in Britain, Nick Clark details his work in the Portuguese Workers Project, initiated in the early 2000s through a collaboration between the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP-IN). He discusses the project’s efforts to support Portuguese migrant workers in London, detailing their advocacy work, the challenges of building trade union consciousness within the diaspora, and the vital lessons learned about labour exploitation and the necessity for strategic organising in a rapidly changing labour market.

In Fighting for a New Workers Movement in South Africa: The Casual Workers Advice Office we hear from participants at the Casual Workers Advice Office (CWAO) in Germiston, South Africa about the role the centre plays in building a more combative workers movement. They explain how the CWAO relates to its parallel organisation, the worker-led Simunye Workers Forum, and the strategy it has developed both for mobilising workers around legal disputes, and supporting autonomous workers’ power in highly repressive conditions.

In Learning from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), Luis Valentin discusses the network of worker centres for day labourers across the US. Luis became involved in the centres as a migrant worker and is now an organiser with the network. He explains how the worker centres started and their approach to supporting migrant workers. In particular, he reflects on the challenges of organising in this way, dealing with casework and issues of racism both within and outside the centres.

In Local Transmissions: Inquiry and Organisation in a Turin Social Centre members of Askatasuna discuss the origins of centri sociali in Italy in the 1970s, their functions as spaces for political organising, and their evolving significance in changing political landscapes.

The aim of bringing this collection together is twofold. First, each of these pieces reflects on particular experiences of place-based organising that are not often shared more widely. We want to encourage further debate about the tactics and strategies of worker organising, learning from both the strengths and weaknesses of these different approaches. Second, we have put together this collection in order to support an ongoing project in Tower Hamlets, London. Part of the editorial board is involved in an organising project with access to space in this borough of London. Publishing this collection is intended as a contribution to this project. We want to shape the debates around what place-based worker organising can be in Tower Hamlets, but we also want to seed these discussions more widely. What does it mean to organise where you are?

A short history of Tower Hamlets

Notes from Below is based in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. This borough covers almost 8 square miles of the city with a population of 325,000. The boundaries go from the Tower of London and the City of London in the west, to the River Lea and the borough of Newham in the east. The Thames river is the southern border, up to Victoria Park and Hackney at the northern edge. The borough covers the historic East End of London.

While the area has a much longer history, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets was formed in 1965 with the merger of the metropolitan boroughs of Stepney, Poplar, and Bethnal Green. The name “Tower Hamlets” was first used in 1554, referring to the hamlets (or settlements smaller than a village) that had to provide military service to the Tower of London. As London expanded, it became the core of the city’s East End, and a key conduit for Britain’s Empire, with the India Docks Company controlling much of the Docklands. From the 19th century onwards, this part of the city housed a rapidly growing industrial working class. Docks were built in the area, with many workplaces servicing the shipping industry. Immigrant workers came to work on the docks or in the clothing industry, including Irish, Jewish and Huguenot workers. Others, like the ‘Lascars’ from China, Bengal, Gujarat, and Malaya, were drawn to London through Britain’s colonial maritime labour regime. There is a long history of working class radicalism in the area. These include struggles like the Matchwomen’s strike and the birth of new unionism, involving figures like Eleanor Marx and Sylvia Pankhurst. Lenin, amongst many other political exiles, spent time living in Whitechapel.

There is a long history of anti-fascist organising in the borough. This can be seen in the mural of the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, commemorating the demonstration blocking Oswald Moseley and the British Union of Fascists from marching. In the 20th Century, there was increasing immigration into the borough, particularly from Sylhet in Bangladesh. There is a rich history of anti-racist organising in the community. This can also be seen in the naming of Altab Ali Park in memory of the British Bangladeshi worker murdered in a racist attack in 1978. The park also has a reproduction of the Shaeed Minar monument in Dhaka, commemorating the Bengali Language Movement.

Work in Tower Hamlets has gone through substantial changes. The last docks were closed in 1980. The former docklands have been transformed into Canary Wharf, the second financial centre in London and a prototype for neoliberal urban development. Like in many parts of Britain, deindustrialisation has been followed by an increase in service work. This is divided between activities focused around finance in Canary Wharf and the rest of the borough. With the City of London to the west, many either work in or service this financial centre too. Many workers are required to keep financial centres operating, as well as attend to buildings and facilities. Elsewhere, there are a large number of workers in hospitals, care, education, food, and hospitality across the borough.

There are two hospitals, one ambulance station, five fire stations, five care homes, thirteen home care providers, 102 schools, the second-largest college in London, seven universities and higher education providers, six museums, seven libraries, nine cinemas, eleven parks, 70 galleries and studio spaces, 35 train and tube stations, 43 bus routes, four piers on the river, 57 supermarkets, 130 pubs, and a constantly changing number of shops, restaurants, and takeaways. This only covers part of the work in Tower Hamlets, but gives an impression of the scale of different employers in the borough.

The largest sector of employment is professional, scientific, and technical activities (13.6%), followed by financial and insurance activities (11.8%), wholesale and retail trade (11.3%), human health and social work (10.6%), information and communication (10%), education (9.1%), and accommodation and food services (7.7%). Manufacturing (2.2%) was the fourth lowest in England and Wales.

The socioeconomic divide among residents is also stark: fewer people of working age are in employment than the national average (66.2% compared to 75.8%). 39.8% of residents are employed in upper or lower management positions in administrative and professional occupations, while 36% of the population have never worked and are long-term unemployed or are employed in routine, semi-routine and intermediate occupations.

In terms of who lives in Tower Hamlets, it is the most densely populated borough in England and one of the fastest-growing areas in the country. It has the largest Bangladeshi population and one of the smallest White British populations. Around half of the population were born in Britain, highlighting how important migration continues to be for shaping the social composition of the borough.

Almost 20% of the population was described as “income-deprived” in 2019, with some of the highest child poverty rates in London. 15% of households were categorised as overcrowded, meaning 30% of residents in the borough are overcrowded, living in housing with too few bedrooms. 74.3% of residents live in socially or privately rented accommodation (22.3% above the city average), with Poplar having the highest percentage of renters in London: 80% of residents rent their homes. This year, the average monthly rent in Tower Hamlets was £2,257, which is a 10.2% increase from the previous year. Given that 12% of residents earn less than £7 an hour, 16% earn below the London Living Wage, and over 20% of households have an income of £15,000 or less, rent places massive economic pressure on residents’ lives.

Why a worker centre?

Through this very brief history and outline of the composition of the borough, it is clear that Tower Hamlets is marked by stark inequality, where historic and migrant working-class communities live alongside one of the world’s major financial hubs. There are many issues that workers and residents face in the borough as a result of this peculiar economic geography. This can be gauged from the overall statistics, as well as inferred from the kinds of sectors that are prominent in the area. They are also reflected in the structure of local social services. Charity-based legal service providers primarily address migration-related issues, both in and outside the workplace, while religious and cultural organisations cater to the specific needs of their communities, offering support in areas such as childcare, education, cultural activities, and citizen’s advice.

The borough has a long-standing tradition of trade unionism. Though, much like the rest of Britain, the majority of workers have not historically been union members. Unsurprisingly, the most prominent trade union presence is concentrated in the public sector, with the council, hospitals, and educational institutions hosting the most visible branches. What is common across both unions and other service providers is that access to space is very difficult in the borough. Housing is, as noted above, very expensive. There is little public or accessible space, and what there is tends to require purchases or pre-payment.

The proposed worker centre that we are involved in would have access to a shopfront space at Pelican House. This is a collectively run building on the busy Cambridge Heath Road, between the tube stations of Whitechapel, Stepney Green, and Bethnal Green. It is not far from some of the major public sector workplaces in the borough, like the hospital, universities, and popular areas for pubs, bars, and restaurants, like Brick Lane. The space itself has a shopfront with event space below. There are offices in the building above, including the UVW (United Voices of the World) union, London Renters Union, migrant rights organisations, and various other social movements. The Tower Hamlets Trades Council meets in the building, as well as other campaign groups and local organisations. There is further event space behind the building, including space to run fundraisers and parties.

We envisage running a worker centre with a focus of a shopfront that workers can access from the street. This would be a drop-in space where workers can receive advice, support, or use the space for free. There are other organisations in the building that want to participate in the drop-in space, for example, providing support for migrants. This would be the public-facing component of the worker centre, which as Mostafa Henaway has stressed, is an important starting point to have access to such space. However, as he explains, a space like this requires extensive outreach, both in the community and with other organisations in the borough. Behind the shopfront, the building can also support more activities that would be part of the worker centre. For example, putting on specific training, hosting meetings for groups of workers, access to computers and printers, fundraisers for strikes, or even headquarters for strikers. Kay Ballard’s piece provides many examples of what a worker centre could involve, becoming a ‘workers’ beehive’ of activity, alongside the trades council.

There are, of course, many risks with a project like this. One of the themes running through the contributions is the risk of becoming swamped with casework, service provision, and becoming a charity-like organisation dependent on philanthropic funding. This proposed worker centre comes out of already existing networks, relationships, and ongoing organising projects. This, alone, is not enough to guard against these risks. However, by starting with a clear understanding of the challenges associated with this form of organisation, we are attempting to build structures that can support the worker centre’s activity, while also making space for strategic and political discussions. The risks that Roberto and Matthew noted in a previous issue of Notes from Below are present here.¹ The pressures of the day-to-day activity of trade unionism and the limits of syndicalism clearly apply here. However, the argument then was as relevant now, involvement in organising projects is a necessity, but so is developing political organisation beyond it.

The UK appears to have a less established history of worker centres, particularly when compared with North America, but there are definite traditions to work alongside. Radical social centres often provide similar services and resources, and have been closely bound to worker struggles - The Casa in Liverpool being founded by workers involved in the 1995-98 Liverpool Dockers dispute, for example. Unemployed Workers Centres also provide an obvious reference point: 240 of these centres existed at one point, helping working class communities navigate the Thatcherite offensive and profound economic crisis of the 1980s through a wide range of service provisions. This network of centres continues to exist and build solidarity today, and so would be vital in collaboration, but with significantly less spread across the UK.² The worker centre as a form for worker organising, therefore, has a rich lineage to draw from and continues to be one that is open to further trial and experimentation.

Place-based inquiries

With class composition, we’ve found it useful to use the categories of technical and social to distinguish the ways that capital organises the working class: at work and in society. We’ve used workers’ inquiry as a way to understand how the changing technical and social composition of the class might generate new political arrangements and antagonisms. Primarily, we’ve done this by trying to understand how the changing nature of workplaces tells us about both technical and social composition.

In Nick Clark’s piece, it is clear that becoming involved in a worker centre is also part of a collective project of understanding the conditions of work. In the case of the Portuguese Workers Project, that involved discovering the employers’ strategies at the edges of the labour market with this particular group of migrant workers. In Tower Hamlets, there will be many different employers’ strategies and ways of exploiting workers. The worker centre will also be part of a collective inquiry into the borough and the changing technical composition of work. It is, therefore, an intervention to understanding the changing technical and social composition, as well as providing a space for political recomposition. As our discussion with the CWAO and their predominant focus on one legal issue stresses, a singular form of dispute or cluster of problems might emerge as the pivot around which a worker centre begins to make its name and build trust with local workers. This is not necessarily easy to predict, however, and requires open experimentation and flexibility to the issues brought forward by workers.

When considering the working class from the perspective of geographical location, we see the possibility of new political arrangements and antagonisms from a different view. From the perspective of class power and strategy, we see things less in terms of workplace, sector and industry, and more in terms of a constellation of distinct workplaces interconnected by shared infrastructures within a local economy, where historic communities live. These workplaces and infrastructures are, of course, part of the national economy, and tied to the conditions and strategic aims (and vulnerabilities) of particular branches of production. However, place is often overlooked in shaping the real conditions of power in workplace struggles.

One of the key transformations in the nature of work in contemporary Britain is the erosion of the traditional power dynamics tied to physical location. This shift is evident in various ways: the strategic placement of economic choke points like logistical hubs, heavy and light manufacturing and food production in areas outside major urban centres, the itinerant and decentralised nature of gig economy jobs and the rise of remote working, which is in the process of disintegrating many white-collar workplaces. The technical structure of modern work, therefore, increasingly reflects a deliberate effort to neutralise traditional locations of class power. This spatial decomposition is compounded by the related dynamic of property speculation which preys upon historic working-class neighbourhoods in deindustrialised cities.

In this sense, capital and the state clearly play a role in organising the technical conditions of the class in space. However, this differs in significant ways from how capital structures workplaces. Unlike workplaces, social space is not organised by a single capitalist aiming to extract surplus value through the wage relation. Instead, social space is a complex arena where multiple competing forces - productive and rent-seeking capitals, national and local authorities, and everyday community life - intersect.

In this inherently contradictory environment, the autonomy of self-organised community life continues to be a potent source of collective insubordination. This dynamic remains evident across many parts of Britain. A vivid example is the community-led de-arresting of two asylum seekers that took place on Kenmure Street in 2021, a demonstration of the migrant solidarity and working-class morality that remains inscribed in parts of Glasgow’s southside. Or, closer to home in Tower Hamlets, Muslim residents repeatedly defied local and national government directives, by draping Palestine flags over street lamps throughout the borough’s main areas.

However, the power of autonomous community life embedded in place does not only move in a progressive direction. The recent eruption of pogroms across Britain after the events in Southport are a grave indication of what can happen when locations of class power are severed from organised class struggle. In such cases, these locations risk becoming breeding grounds for reactionary community instincts and class coalitions, with their power redirected toward fascistic ends.

For this reason, we see the potential of something like a place-based inquiry as a way of concretely understanding the technical and social composition of the class in specific locations - an approach which would need to be attentive to the subjective dimensions of community experience, as much as the objective forces transforming the landscape. This, we see, as a starting point for the urgent task of orienting specific locations of class power in the direction of class struggle.

Given the distinct histories of particular locations, and the different ways that capital and the state are projected onto the landscape, we imagine the result of such inquiries will vastly differ across the country. This means that the political compositions, demands and struggles which flow from such inquiries will most likely reflect a heterogenous picture in terms of a broader working-class strategy. But the movement through these potentially contradictory localised struggles is a necessary step to build real bases of class political power. For Notes From Below, this is the precondition to an effective and democratic approach to a unified working-class strategy.

Democratic forms and culture have to be actively cultivated within any organisation, and as evident in the centres surveyed in this issue, this can be tricky when worker centres exist alongside organisations with paid staff, their interests and ways of acting. That workers themselves feel, and take ownership and control of the centre is only possible through a long process of rooting the space in the local community, and establishing that it can evolve to meet changing urban compositions. In our discussion with the Casual Workers Advice Office in South Africa, for example, the imperative of a feminist politics within the centre, and how this has shaped its understanding of ongoing struggle and orientated its activity in its surrounding area, is well clarified.

As the articles in this issue demonstrate, the worker centre serves as a pole of attraction for a diversity of local workers, often those falling outside of the official working-class movement. We see the worker centre, then, as an organisational form which uniquely lends itself to the practice of place-based inquiries. The political character of the worker centre typically reflects the unique social and material needs of its constituencies and the sources of power of its location. In practice, this emerges from individual and collective accounts of specific experiences of local workplaces, which reveal patterns of iniquities within the local economy, as well as the discovery of strategic power through cross-struggle collaboration.

A new worker centre might slot into pre-existing projects or spaces that have resources to support worker organising, or it may need to be built from scratch. Existing community initiatives could be a springboard for a more sustained campaign around a dispute with a big local employer, or a longer process of inquiry might be necessary to get a sense of what problems local workers are facing, and where established unions aren’t cutting it. Every city has its unique balance of social movements and trade union activity which a worker centre would have to relate to and, hopefully, draw upon.

How might a worker centre look in your area? Are there local projects already taking on this kind approach? We invite further contributions on the role of place-based inquiries and organising, collaboration on the worker centre in Tower Hamlets, reflections on other projects, or proposals and reports on projects aiming to do something similar.