Cleaners and other professional services staff struck on 26-27 Sep at SOAS University in London as part of Unison’s strike action across UK universities. The dispute is responding to a measly 3% pay offer, demanding an increase of 2% above inflation.
Unison picket lines across London campuses were lively during the first week of term, setting the context for a year to come on campus during this historic upturn in workers’ action. Picket lines at SOAS and Kings College London were well sustained by workers and students in support. The solidarity groups set up to support last year’s strikes have continued and are ready to keep fighting.
Many of the workers on strike are some of the lowest paid in the university, their work often invisibilised, consistently subject to cuts in staffing levels, and denied professional development within the institution. It is the cleaning team, the lowest grade and overwhelmingly migrant workers, who sustain the picket lines, but one security guard stepped out of the norm to join at SOAS. “Normally they [other security guards] all stay there, but I had to make a stand”, he said on joining the strike.
The decision was particularly brave considering the university’s hyper-authoritarian response to the strike. Breaking decades of convention, the week before the strike the university sent a letter to the national Unison chair, announcing the university would not be permitting picket lines outside the main building, instead forcing them off campus. That policy was enforced with 40 private security on campus, who physically threatened students, and created an eerie atmosphere for those students arriving for Welcome Week.
Just down the road, cleaners at the High Holborn building of the University of the Arts London (UAL) were engaged in their own week-long dispute. They are represented by GMB. An energetic local organiser with the union has been campaigning with the outsourced workers to be brought in house, despite intransigence from the university.
The five-day strike gathered support from students and other unions (CAIWU, IWGB) but the university’s lack of response points to the need for escalation.