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Winning living wage was SOAS workers’ ‘crime’
• WE are appalled at the actions of the immigration services, who, with the aid of facilities contractors ISS, recently conducted an early-morning raid of the School of Oriental and African Studies.
Nine cleaners were accused of working without valid documentation and are now being held pending their likely deportation from the UK.
Neither the contractors nor the university authorities had any problem with employing migrant labour with or without valid work permits so long as lecture theatres were cleaned at low rates and ISS were making sufficient profits.
The crime these mainly Latin American workers seem to have committed is to have campaigned for, and won, the London Living Wage and their union rights. In fact ISS had signed a union recognition agreement with Unison last week.
Unison members struck solidly last month in protest at the sacking of cleaner and union activist Jose Stalin Bermudez.
Evidence suggests that SOAS management colluded with ISS and the immigration services to allow this shameful episode to happen and we believe that the raid took place to send a message to other groups of workers who may have been encouraged by the success of the Living Wage campaigns.
We demand an amnesty for all migrant workers in Britain.
Tony Benn
Jeremy Corbyn MP
John McDonnelL MP
Sandy Nicholl &
Graham Dyer SOAS Unison Marya Ahmed
SOAS Co-President
Elly James
SOAS Women’s Officer
Clare Solomon
Former SOAS Co-President
James Haywood &
Phemie Matheson NUS NEC
Pat Carmody CWU
Section Secretary, and others
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