Make the March, 2022
Make the March shared people’s journeys to the TUC cost-of-living demonstration in London on 18 June 2022. The project recognised what it takes to go on national rallies — and helped start the demo early online.
Lets do it! it wont be straight after i get on cos you know.. 6am 😄
- Chez Govind, @PCS_OFGEM, 7.31pm, 18 June 2022
It was only on the Thursday before the march that Chez Govind found a way to get to London. UNISON’s Bolton branch had opened its bus to non-UNISON members. So Chez grabbed a seat.
Normally based in Glasgow, the government data analyst was staying with her family in Bolton where she grew up. “Oh you’re a northerner!” she says when we speak on Friday, “Oh yeah, I’m so up for this!”
For the past week, I’d been looking for coaches to tweet their journeys to London. We’d last run Make the March — a project which recognises trade union creativity — in 2012. This time we were focusing on efforts people make to get to national rallies.
Eight coaches had signed up but none from the North West. Being from Preston, this gap was beginning to smart. But then, of course, two came at once.
First the People’s Assembly coach from Manchester, organised by trade unionist Chris Neville. And then the UNISON bus from Bolton, now with Chez as Twitter emcee.
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When we spoke on the Friday, Chez was fixing up her placard. “It’s a mixture of cardboard, glue, and A-Level art!” she explained.
Chez’s anger and frustration at the cost-of-living crisis meant she had to get to London for the march. Like thousands of others in the union movement, she is now convinced mass action is necessary to prevent society’s most vulnerable being left to suffer. A scientist by training, Chez spends her working days applying her doctorate in bioscience to data problems. But when it comes to the current state of the UK economy, she argues polite analysis is not enough. And this is reflected in her finished placard. It appears in Chez’s first tweet on Saturday, which she posts at 6am.
“I’m too ragin’,” shouts the placard, “to make a clever sign.”
Morning from my sign to eerily quiet 6am Bolton -
after listening to @RMTunion Mick Lynch on R4 saying
“its better to lift the whole council estate with you”
this is exactly why I’m marching today
@The_TUC #MakeTheMarch #WeDemandBetter
- Chez Govind, @PCS_OFGEM, 6.01am, 18 June 2022
A hundred and fifty miles away, outgoing NUS Wales President, Becky Ricketts, is standing in front of the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff.
Her placard focuses on student hardship.
In her two years in office, she’s been shocked at how limited government grants are for disadvantaged students, and how many people quit their courses as a result.
The image she shares from outside the museum is dramatic. In a very real sense, it will be repeated in London by others later in the day. Against a backdrop of architecture designed to keep people in their place, Becky’s sign makes clear the day is one for people power.
Despite being an experienced campaigner, it’s Becky’s first time on a London march. Fired up by having spoken at the Merthyr Rising Festival the previous weekend, she is more than ready for the journey to Westminster.
Her bus, the Cardiff PCS bus, leaves the city centre at 6.30am.
Bore da/good morning!
It’s an early start this morning as friends from across the TU movement gather in London for
@The_TUC #DemandBetter march!
First one here this morning ☁️
- Becky Ricketts, @NUSWalesPres, 5.28am - June 18, 2022
As early as the starts are in Cardiff and Bolton, they’re nothing on that of the NASUWT Newtown bus.
By the time Becky and Chez are on the move, the teaching union’s bus from mid-Wales has been going for two hours — though is yet to reach a motorway.
Organised by NASUWT President Angela Butler, the bus was ready for the off at 4.30am, even if everyone on the bus was not fully awake.
In her first video post of the march, Angela asks gathered passengers what time it is. “Too early,” she’s heckled.
But this is the reality of a TUC demo. It starts long before the march takes its first steps; and it needs huge amounts of planning and commitment for so many union members to get to the capital. As tweets throughout the day go on to show, that effort draws on people’s shared identities, branch histories, and their deep anger at the treatment of working people by successive governments.
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8am on the Bolton coach and Chez, like others taking part in Make the March, is interviewing people on why they are going to London.
Her interviewees include Sarah who found out about the rally on TikTok, and who has taken annual leave to attend.
Sarah, a care worker from Blackburn, has brought with her a three-in-one mega placard. One of Sarah’s signs bluntly makes clear that care workers have been let down after the pandemic: “Clapping,” it says, “won’t pay our bills.”
Exasperated by the extent to which wages are not keeping up with prices, it’s Sarah’s first time on a national demo, too. In fact, the connecting journey from the bus to the start of the march will be Sarah’s first time on the London Underground.
That’s how out of the ordinary today is.
According to Chez’s tweets, Sarah “would previously have avoided going to things alone but this year is HER year and she’s not sitting back and letting the crisis happen.”
Chez — who only met Sarah on the coach — is in awe of her (and her three placards).
The two women decide to start the march together.
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On other Make the March coaches, similar interviews are taking place.
Watching online from Lewisham before I head into the march, it’s inspiring to see the combinations of stories and pictures spread across Twitter.
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On the Ipswich bus, Mark Jones is making videos of passengers, including one of Simon Gooding, a young persons worker.
Simon and his wife have lost a quarter of their pay over the last ten years due to below-inflation pay rises and, with a disabled child to care for, it’s getting harder and harder.
What angers Simon the most is that it’s lower-paid workers who are being asked to pay for the crisis, despite record profits in the corporate sector.
During the journey, Mark also shares the story of Constance Andrews, a Suffragette depicted in the Ipswich & District TUC banner. Not only is the history of suffrage protests in Ipswich fascinating, but on the morning of the TUC demo it acts as a reminder that the union movement is sustained as much by local acts of solidarity as days of national action. Mark goes on to share other histories relevant to his coach’s journey, including that of the Burston School Strike — the longest strike in UK history.
On the People’s Assembly bus from Manchester, Chris Neville puts together a brilliant set of photo portraits of his coach.
As the bus speeds down the M6, and then the M40, Bruce of @Unionsxr tells Chris why he is looking forward to the march. At the moment, he’s relishing increased cooperation between trade unions and environmental groups:
“There is a dire need to bring radical environmental and progressive labour movements together. The climate crisis and the cost of living crisis are products of the same system. The system is the crisis.”
Likewise, another climate activist, Emilie, says she’s on the march, “to show solidarity with the unions… and show that people power works.”
Chris Neville’s photos of Bruce and Emilie posted on @PplsAssemblyMcr
Elsewhere, on a packed bus from Birmingham, civil servant and PCS member Rekha Davi is interviewing Chloé and Gursh.
They’re marching to make people more aware of their rights at work. They tell Rekha people should “take a stand, be part of the protest” as “we deserve to have fair and equal treatments for all people and for all workers.”
Chloé and Gursh on the Birmingham PCS coach
At the start of the march by BBC Broadcasting House, Bolton’s Chez and Blackburn’s Sarah smile for a photo with their placards.
“Great placards!” tweets Bob and Roberta Smith, an artist who knows a good sign when he sees one.
Bob and Roberta (two names, one artist) has given us some prizes for the creativity on show in the demo.
Chez and Sarah at the start of the We Demand Better march
As people from the different coaches make their way along the march route, their tweets capture fragments of the hope, solidarity, anger, and pride that move the march forwards.
NASUWT President Angela Butler in front of her union’s marching band, alongside General Secretary Patrick Roach
Joanna West (left), organiser of the GMB Derby coach, tweets a picture of some of the signs made at the placard workshop she ran mid week
In Parliament Square, Nick Raine (right) from the Notts coach completes his march carrying the NEU East Midlands banner, made by master banner-maker Ed Hall
The power of social media is clear when watching the march online. Thousands of stories roll through the march’s main hashtag #WeDemandBetter, and a fair number through #MakeTheMarch, too. Each picture and short text does its bit to prevent the demo being reduced to a single photo or news headline.
Photos and videos of the rally at the end of the march are tweeted and retweeted. It’s clear the size of the demo is surprising many. It’s so big one Twitter account suggests we need to build a bigger Parliament Square.
When the big crowds leave Parliament Square, after the speakers have handed back their mics, and after showers make many seek cover, attention turns to the trip home — though not before the Ipswich bus manages a few pints in the St Stephen’s Tavern by Westminster Tube station.
Freed from my laptop, I catch up with the King’s Lynn coach on Whitehall, before tracking down Bob and Roberta Smith by the Parliament Gift Shop. He hands over the prizes in carefully packed tote bags.
On the coaches back, people are clearly running low on energy but tweets — though fewer in number — keep coming. There is elation at the march being the lead story on BBC News, and more pride as individual coaches see their stories picked up by different media.
Becky’s tweets from the Cardiff bus feed into the coverage of the demo by The National Wales.
Later, Jo’s photos and stories from the King’s Lynn coach feature in the Lynn News.
On the Birmingham bus, Rekha is getting messages from friends who have seen her tweets want to go on the next London rally. There’s also much discussion about how the momentum of the day can be maintained. “We need another march ahead of the winter bills,” Rekha tells me on the phone, “We can’t just wait for next year.”
Stung by the £12.50 she paid for London fish and chips, Rekha’s also thinking of ways the TUC could do more for marchers: “Why not have a giant feast in Parliament Square next time? Like those we hold at our temple, where people are encouraged to bring food to share. That would cut the cost of going on the march, which would encourage more to come. At least have a free drinks stand!”
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On the Bolton coach, however, all is quiet.
Sitting next to Sarah, Chez is slipping into a doze as the coach takes her back to her mum’s house. A few days later we’ll arrange how best to get one of Bob and Roberta Smith’s rosettes to her. Both Sarah and Chez have won Bob and Roberta best-in-show trophies for their placards. For now though, she manages a final tweet:
The day flew by like my phone battery.
Even the hour waiting to start marching was spent meeting people
& hearing many southern accents aha.
Nothing else recharges your batteries as much as a demo -
the only reason id travel 9hrs to spend 6hrs in a city!
#DemandBetter
- Chez Govind, @PCS_OFGEM, 10.20pm, 18 June 2022
Make the March: how to get involved…
Make the March followed the journeys of coaches from across the UK attending the TUC We Demand Better march on 18 June 2022.
If you would like more information on the project or to be involved at a future rally or march, it would be great to hear from you. Please email guyatkins@gmail.com or follow @makethemarch on Twitter.
Credits and thanks
Big thanks to the core project team who tweeted their journeys to London: Rekha Davi (tweeting from the PCS Birmingham coach), Angela Butler (Newtown NASUWT), Becky Ricketts (PCS Cardiff), Chez Govind (UNISON Bolton), Joanna West (GMB Derby), Chris Neville (People’s Assembly Manchester), Emma Lang (Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole Trades Council), Nick Raine (Nottingham NEU), Jo Rust (Unite/GMB King's Lynn and District Trades Council), and Mark Jones (Ipswich and District Trades Council).
The project benefited enormously from the support of Bob & Roberta Smith, Nina Trivedi, Anna Burton, Thom Bridge, and Andrea Moore.
Finally, Bob & Roberta’s ‘placard rosettes’ were awarded to Chez Govind, Sarah Ellwood and Pauline Lane for the placards they made and carried on the day.
Guy Atkins
Artist-researcher
Member of the Artists’ Union England
July 2022