G4S AGM confronted with campaigners' Alternative Report

Today, over 70 people demonstrated outside of G4S Annual General Meeting, protesting against the company's disastrous human rights record across the globe. As G4S' becomes further involved with new UK government contracts, the extent of their national and global reach is beginning to be revealed.

The protest today saw campaigners deliver their Alternative Report to shareholders entering the meeting, a document that masqueraded as a real G4S report but actually critiqued the actions of the multi-national corporation.

Shiar Youssef, of Corporate Watch, made the following statement:

 “G4S has manoeuvred itself into a pole position to profit from the coalition government's plans to destroy public services through slashing workers' pay and sacrificing the quality of services, as well as by hiring establishment figures like former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Paul Condon as board members. Poorer services, less accountability, more profits.” 

G4S' various contracts extend from providing security services to the Israeli government in occupied Palestinian territories to managing asylum seekers' social housing in Yorkshire and Humberside. Despite the tragic incident of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan asylum seeker who died as a result of excessive force used by a G4S guard on a forcible deportation flight, the UK government has continued to award the company new contracts in the recent surge of privatisation in public services. Not only are G4S providing security for the Olympics this summer, they are now contracted to run critical parts of the Lincolnshire Police Force.

See this Demotix news article for further coverage of today's protest.

G4S News Update 28th May - 3rd June

G4S News Update 28th May - 3rd June

G4S refutes claims that the company are set to operate in Libya without formal approval, Libya Herald, May 28th 2012: In post-revolutionary Libya, G4S are supposedly planning to start operating their private security services on Libyan soil without government authorisation. G4S states that this claim is unfounded. 

Female asylum seeker and her 12 week old baby moved from Bradford home to slum flat in Doncaster, Open Democracy, May 30th 2012: As transition begins in Yorkshire, United Property Management (G4S' chosen subcontractors) have started to evict asylum seeking tenants from homes in the region. This young mother was given barely 1 weeks notice before she was moved to a flat in Doncaster with no cooker, sofa or chairs and with a only a tiny sink for washing. (Also covered in 24Dash w/photographs)

Full list of bidders for police contracts in the West Midlands and Surrey published, Birmingham Post, May 31st 2012: The full list of preferred bidders for the police privatisation contracts in the West Midlands and Surrey has recently been published. 

Cambridgeshire Police look to privatise support staff to plug funding shortfalls, Hunts Post, June 1st 2012: Following in the footsteps of Lincolnshire Police, Cambridgeshire Police are putting plans in motion to privatise back room 'support' staff in their regional police stations. 

London lawyer takes on G4S' involvement in Israeli security in occupied territories, The Electronic Intifada, June 1st 2012: A London lawyer, and active supporter of Jews for Justice for Palestine, has been interviewed by The Electronic Intifada about G4S Israel's involvement in detention and security in Palestinian territories. 

G4S whistleblower loses job after claiming overstretched G4S staff were cutting corners when recruiting staff for London's Olympics, The Northerner Echo, June 2nd 2012: A woman from Darlington was told not to return to G4S offices after talking to the media about her fears that G4S' systems were cracking under the pressure of thousand of applications for security jobs during the Olympics. (Subsequently covered in the Daily Mail on the 5th June).

OTHER UPDATES//NEWS

- New Corporate Watch update on G4S' interests in occupied territories in Palestine, social housing and international security launched on the 31st May. 

- Stop G4S! Protest at G4S Annual General Meeting

12:30pm, Thursday June 7
London Stock Exchange, Paternoster Square, London EC4M 7LS - see the following website for more info. 

G4S: the public face of private police

Companies like G4S are often described as the invisible authorities behind hundreds of our so called social services. The fact that a care home is run by A4E, a detention centre is managed by Serco or that your local police authority is a 'joint-venuture' with multi-national corporation G4S, is not advertised as such; it's only there when you go looking.

At least that's how it's been for years. Yet in the words of Claire Sambrook, writing brilliantly for Open Democracy, now 'Corporate Power stamps its brand on British Policing'; Lincolnshire police uniforms now find their epaulettes branded by the brazen red, white and black of the G4S logo. According to a BBC report, the uniforms are to be worn by 200 staff, including front counter staff at police stations. We're seeing a "strategic partnership" with G4S firmly in control.

On the first of April 2012, 540 civilian Lincolnshire police workers turned into employees of G4S, the largest security company in the UK. Alongside managing frontline counter service, G4S employees will run the crime management bureau, the central ticket office and collisions unit, the criminal justice unit, the resource management unit and firearms licensing. This is hardy the back-room presence that the government claimed private contractors would have within the police. Put succinctly by Sambrook:

As for the corporate statement, "There are no plans to introduce the dual logo elsewhere," it is a warning. It does not come from the government, or from a Minister speaking to Parliament. The sentence carries a huge, silent word at the end: "yet". 

Paul McKeever, chairman of the Police Federation, immdiately after acknowledging that changing the uniforms will have an adverse effect on the visual presence of warranted officers, made the following statement:

"G4S aren't doing anything wrong. They are doing what any private company would want to do, which is make profit and expand their organisation." 

I'm not sure whether I could ever agree with that.