Waste service strike

A number of Tower Hamlets Council frontline waste service workers and street cleansers will be going on strike from 18 September to 1 October due to a national pay dispute.  

Despite the council working to maintain services for residents, the strike will impact collections and cleansing across the borough. We apologise in advance for the disruption this will cause. 

Find out more about the strike.

Permitted employment for children and young people

Jobs that children aged 13 and above can do

  • light agricultural and horticultural work
  • shop work including shelf stacking
  • delivery of newspapers, journals and other printed materials (but not collecting money)
  • shampooing and sweeping up in hairdressers
  • serving tables in a café/restaurant (but not working in the commercial kitchen)
  • office work
  • car washing by hand in a private residential setting
  • working in riding stables
  • domestic work in hotels.

In addition, young people aged 14 and above can work with their parents in a market if they have a work permit.

Jobs children aged 13 and above can NOT do

No child of any age may be employed:

  • in a cinema, theatre, discotheque, dance hall or night club, except if the child is performing and is licensed to do so
  • in a factory or industrial undertaking
  • to sell or deliver alcohol (except in sealed containers and under the supervision of a responsible adult)
  • delivering milk
  • delivering fuel oils
  • in any commercial kitchen such as a café, pub, hotel or fish and chip shop
  • collecting or sorting refuse
  • in any work that is more than three metres above ground or floor level
  • in employment involving harmful exposure to physical, biological or chemical agents
  • collecting money or selling or canvassing door to door
  • in work involving exposure to adult material or in situations which are for this reason otherwise unsuitable for children
  • in telephone sales
  • in any slaughterhouse or in that part of a butcher’s shop or any other premises connected with the killing of livestock, butchery or the preparation of carcasses or meat for sale
  • as an attendant or assistant in a fairground or amusement arcade (where gambling takes place)
  • in the personal care of residents in any residential care home or nursing home.