Lobby of Home Office TMRW 5.30-6.30pm: Our cleaners are not criminals!

Let them stay..

Our cleaners are not criminals!

Staff and students at SOAS are calling for Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for the Home Office, to grant leave to remain with permission to work for Marina Silva and Rosa dePerez, two of the SOAS cleaners picked up in a brutal immigration raid on 12^thJune. Marina, who is 63 and has applied for asylum, following het brutal honour killing of her husband and threats to her own life, and Rosa, who has four children to support in Nicaragua, remain in detention following the raid. Their colleagues, including six months pregnant Luzia, were deported within 48 hours of the raid.

Cleaners at SOAS had demanded and organised for dignity at work with many joining a union. They had succeeded in winning union recognition from the privatised cleaning firm ISS and raising their pay to the London Living Wage—higher than other colleges in the area. It is of grave concern that the raid, organised by ISS, took place shortly after this campaign and on the very day on which UNISON was due to protest in support of an activist who had played a leading role in organising the cleaners at SOAS.

Please support our campaign:

Lobby the Home Office, Tuesday 30^th June, 5.30-6.30pm

2 marsham st, millbank, Sw1

Sign the letter requesting leave to remain is granted to Marina and Rosa

http://freesoascleaners.blogspot.com/2009/06/send-this-letter-to-home-office-now.html

For more information go to: http://freesoascleaners.blogspot.com/

Stop the Deportation of SOAS University Cleaners!

Supported by SOAS SU, UNISON and UCU

Home Office forces Uni's to act as immigration informers

Outcry from lecturers over plans to make them ’spies’.University of London staff have fiercely denounced new government rules which will force university staff to report international students who fail to turn up to class to border authorities.

An implementation plan for new immigration rules, published on October 30^th, will see universities receive licences from the United Kingdom Border Authority (UKBA) and operate as students’ sponsors, reporting those who do not enrol, miss tutorials or coursework submissions, or who discontinue their studies.

The measures, which will be phased in over a twelve month period starting in March 2009, require universities to acquire licences in order to recruit students from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), and are part of a new Australian-style points based immigration system.

A letter published in the Guardian newspaper and signed by over 200 academics in the 24 hours before it was printed said: “The new immigration rules for overseas students to be introduced in March 2009 by the Border Agency are very worrying”.

“The university is being asked to act as an immigration officer and set up a surveillance unit over these students. This goes far beyond the present monitoring of student progress systems in universities, which has as its basic purpose assisting students to reach their full potential.”

At the time of going to press, the number of signatories had reached around 360, including staff from the LSE, SOAS, UCL and Birkbeck College, the letter’s author Ian Grigg-Spall said.

Speaking to London Student, Mr Grigg-Spall, a lecturer at Kent University Law School and Academic chair of the National Critical Lawyers Group, said: “This is a matter of principle. It breaches academic freedom and universities’ autonomy.”

“Relationships between staff and students rely on trust, this creates mistrust and destroys that relationship”.

“The idea that universities must know where students are at all times is just wrong as a matter of principle,” he added.

Read more at London Student

UCU Prseident Sally Hunt, said: "We have grave concerns that new rules on monitoring foreign students have been pulled together without any consultation with the people who would be tasked with their implementation. We do not believe it is appropriate or effective to task colleges and universities with the policing of immigration."

To read the UCU's response, click here:
http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3599
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7719476.stm - BBC To read the letter,
click here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/nov/10/immigration-policy-immigratio
n-and-public-services
For more, click here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/nov/10/international-students-migra
nt-scams-crackdown

See facebook campaign from NUS International Students Officer

Justice 4 All Cleaners-What next?

Campaign planning meeting-all welcome

*Solidarity with Cleaners * For a Living Wage * Against Deportations

In June SOAS Justice 4Cleaners campaign won the fight for a London Living wage (LLW) for all its cleaners, reflecting similar victories at LSE and Queen Marys. Last week’s planned Tubelines strikes were called off at the 11th hour after successful negotiations demanding the LLW. With Britain on the brink of a recession we see strikes planned across the country and the return of militant campaigning.

Yet massive injustices persist. How do we stop the intimidation tactics that threaten deportation to activist migrant workers? How do we stop the isolation of cleaners in institutions such as universities? How do our various campaigns come together to secure fair pay and working conditions for ALL cleaners in London?

This meeting offers a forum to answer these questions and plan practical action to continue the struggle.

Speakers:
Philip Mambuliya - Chair, RMT cleaners grades, London Underground

Mohammed Yellow– RMT cleaner, Eurostar

Consuelo Moreno - SOAS Unison steward

Support the cleaners' demands for:

• Bank holiday and sick pay

• A Living wage of £7.45, promised by Boris Johnson to SOME cleaners, to be extended to ALL.

• An end to reduction in service hours

• and an end to racist immigration policies which are used to intimidate & victimise cleaners
  
  
  

Hosted by SOAS SU with support from RMT cleaners campaign, SOAS UNISON, SOAS UCU and the SOAS Detainee Support Group .

Call Clare on 07958 034 181 for more info

Justice 4 All Cleaners