The Future in Our Past by Callum Cant;Matthew Lee; & Matthew Lee

Author:Callum Cant;Matthew Lee; & Matthew Lee [Cant, Callum & Lee, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 1)
Published: 2026-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

2026

When the streets are wet and the sun is low, the peculiarly smooth pavement outside Whitechapel Library shines like glass. Behind the glare, you can see the outline of the City, with skyscrapers looming. In winter, the market traders are so wrapped up that their movements look clumsy as they start to take down their stalls. The homeless are still outside, sheltering under the library’s frontage. There are mopeds and electric bikes all over the place.

In early 2024, we were walking back to the station when a rider on an electric bike cut across our path. His box had a sticker on it with ‘strike’ written in big yellow letters. We flagged him down and started talking. Who was striking, what were they striking for, who had organised it, what were the demands, when was it happening? We had to ask via a translation app. Eventually, we got answers: there was a group in south-west London organising it, they would be striking over pay tomorrow night. We had more questions: how could we help, were there going to be pickets? The rider laughed and added us to a WhatsApp group. We’d find the answers there. He rolled off to complete his delivery.

The strikes were huge. The first action, on 4 February 2024, saw over ninety local ‘zones’ across London, Brighton, Liverpool, Bath and Glasgow come out. Workers in London formed mass pickets around the ‘dark kitchens’, the delivery-only fast-food sites. Roaming pickets moved from area to area to make sure the strike was solid and to talk to anyone they saw working. One rider in Earls Court described how the strike spread there:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.