This post will be updated when i get more info...
UPDATE 15.44
1 cleaner has been released.
3 are being held in old st police st
4 in Borough police station
One cleaner has agreed to be deported. She will fly out 4pm on Monday from Heathrow.
Those being held in Old St police station are scheduled to be deported on Monday.
Will be moved to Dover on monday
UPDATE: Basically, the cleaners were called into an emergency staff meeting at 6.30am this morning. They were then detained in the room (G2) until 40 robocop immigration officers surrounded them. They had been hiding in the room behind staging. This whole thing has been planned meticulously.
We can not get hold of any of the cleaners. This means thhey have had their mobile phones taken off them which is illegal. We still do not know where they are being detained.
Liveblogging from emergency Unison mtg
13.10. One of the cleaners 6 months pregnaant
Cleaners being held in detention centre near Gatwick (although i heard this from one person outside the mtg)
Being put on fast track for deportation
Governing Body being held at the moment in rm 116. We have people in there who will bring this up in the strongest possible manner.
We should protest at detention centre
It's outrageous that it is only the cleaners who have to prove where they come from
13.17 We should reiterate our call for bringing the outsourced services in house. ISS are complicit in this
Students ffrom the Detainee Support Society are fully on board
Lots of student support
Student Union will send out email and statement to all students
13.21 we should do a collection and make sure the families of the cleaners are also supported
ISS is well known for treating staff like this and employ large number of migrant workers
ISS actually said that they knew and allowed immigration in. why did they not just let the staff know in advance?
Immigration dressed like Robocop
SOAS management knew about raid in advance
13.36 what about the schools responsibility of duty of care to its staff
protest outside school at 4.30 TODAY
It's not coincidental that this has happened today given that we had a lobby of governing body planned for this morning over Stalin's cas but we were disrupted due to having to deal with this
13.51 mount pleasant post office also raided today
possibly UCL too
===============
This morning at 8, SOAS University was raided by Immigration police who rounded up 9 of our cleaners and are threatening to deport them tonight.
We have fought hard with the cleaners to get them union representation and a decent wage (which we have now got). many of them have been working here for years, and have their whole lives here in london..
Apparently this has happened at UCL too, and i believe on the tube where active cleaners were pulled up in front of management and subsequently fired because their working documents were not up to scratch
Staff at SOAS said it was a scene from Nazi Germany with all the cleaners lined up against a wall then shuffled into a room where they were locked up whilst having to fill out loads of forms. They were released individually only if they completed the forms correctly.
They have no access to lawyers or interpreters so I don't know if they all know exactly how to fill out the forms or whether they know exactly what is going on.
please offer your support by emailing MPs, MEPs, SOAS Management, anyone you can think of...and get in contact if you know any immigration lawyers. The Unison ones can only represent those already in the union.
thanks
this is the pathetic email we got from management assuring us that cleaning standards will be kept up! They should not be cooperating with the government on this.
Dear colleagues
Officials from the Border Control Agency visited SOAS this morning
with a warrant to enter the premises and to carry out checks on
employees of our cleaning contractor ISS who were suspected of working
illegally.
We understand this must have been distressing for those involved, and
indeed our own colleagues. However we believe the checks were carried
out quickly and in a sympathetic manner.
We have been informed that nine people have been detained for further
questioning and ISS is liaising directly with the Border Control
Agency at this stage.
SOAS is legally obliged to co-operate fully with the authorities
regarding such matters and we would like to thank staff for their
cooperation and understanding at this time. We have received
assurances from ISS that the standard of cleaning in School buildings
will be maintained.
Alan Smith
Interim Secretary and Registrar
