Archive for June, 2009
SOAS, an example of the marketised university – bringing exploitation and oppression to our campuses
Immigration officials rounded up outsourced cleaners working at the School of Oriental and African Studies on Friday without any recourse to representation by a union or lawyers, and nine staff have been put into fast-track deportation, with three already deported by Sunday.
From Solomon’s Mindfield:
by Sadie Robinson
Students and workers at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) have organised an emergency protest for 8.30am on Monday 15 June to defend cleaners at the site who are facing imminent threat of deportation.
Cleaners at Soas were rounded up by immigration officials at an early morning meeting last Friday.
The raid follows campaigns by the cleaners to win union recognition and the London Living Wage.
Nine of the cleaners were subsequently held, including one woman who is six months pregnant. Their Unison union rep, Sandy Nicoll, said he was prevented from having any contact with them.
By Sunday three had already been deported. Others may be deported on Monday morning.
There is widespread anger and shock at the raid and at the speed with which the workers are being removed from Britain, with no opportunity to challenge the rulings or get legal advice. Many people saw the raid as the “kidnapping” of their fellow workers.
Some 200 students and workers protested outside Soas on Friday evening. “I’m so ashamed of this institution today,” said Sandy. “It’s not an accident that immigration raids are taking place in workplaces where cleaners have been organising to win better pay and conditions.
“London can’t run without low-paid migrant workers to do work like cleaning – but if they try and fight for rights then they’re out.”
“Our union met today and unanimously passed a motion to back whatever campaign there is to stop the deportations of these cleaners. The cleaners are an important part of the union.”
Graham Dyer, the UCU union president at Soas, was also at the protest. “I came in this morning to take part in a demonstration to support Stalin (a former worker at Soas who has been victimised by management after organising campaigns to improve workers’ rights), only to find that the cleaning staff had been taken by immigration officials.
“The UCU is outraged. It’s clear that management have been complicit in allowing immigration officials to come onto our campus.”
Sam, a student at Soas, spoke poignantly to the crowd about the raid. “Just imagine what it’s like,” he said. “You get up and go to work expecting to come home later and empty the washing that you’ve left in the machine, pick up your kids, etc. But no. Instead you get taken away to be deported.
“I’m almost speechless at management’s behaviour.”
The message is clear. Rather than being the standard bearers of a progressive vision of our society, universities are now the sites of the most oppressive apparatuses of our society.
Follow http://freesoascleaners.blogspot.com/ closely.
New list of sites (blogroll) by subject
My rather long blogroll has become a little unwieldy of late, so I’ve decided to reorganise it using more fine-grained categories than before. I hope they’re of use to people. If you click the headings, you’ll be taken to Google Reader where you can import the bundles automatically. You can also try this below:
Most disappointing elections ever
Everything that needs to be said about the EU elections has already been said elsewhere.
But the Iranian elections?
I’ve taken a particular interest in Iran ever since being approached by the “former terrorist” group and possible recipient of US Black Ops funding, Mujahadin-E-Khalq outside UCL Waterstones last April, so I was keen to see what was going to happen in this election.
Seriously, a 4 year old could cover up the fraud better than that. See Juan Cole’s post.
I’m willing to acede that Ahmedinijad could have won the general election in a runoff, but with no substantial vote differences across regions and between cities and rural areas, there’s no way he gained a majority of the votes with 4 candidates, and an extremely strong challenger.
The MSM needs to get its act together. The Iranian neocons have rolled back the reforms of the Rafanjani and Khatami period, and the supreme guardians don’t care too much for reformers, since reform means curbing state largesse,which challenges their resource base. Obama effect?!? And you’re focus on youth in cities ignores what’s happening elsewhere. Not that you perform any differently when looking at US domestic politics, hey?
And to state-owned English language PressTV: you’re not AlJazeera, so f**k off. That includes Gilligan and Galloway. Twats.
Subscribe