Students occupy SOAS over cleaners’ deportation
June 15th, 2009 | Author: Hilary Aked
At least 40 students are occupying SOAS University in protest against the deportation of cleaning staff, which they claim is an attempt to exact revenge for recent trade union activity.
Following Friday’s dawn raid by immigration officials, five of the nine cleaners arrested have already been deported, mostly to Latin American countries. Occupiers are demanding the School’s Director, Paul Webley, write to the Home Secretary calling for amnesty for the remaining detainees.
One student said: “Universities should be sanctuaries: places free of violence and aggression. SOAS’s reputation as a university has been tainted today”.
Over 20 academics from the university also signed a statement denouncing the School’s management for facilitating the Border Control Agency’s work.
“It is a total disgrace that the raid took place at an institution actively recruiting students from around the world on the basis of its reputation as a leading centre for the study of global justice, human rights and racial tolerance,” it said.
Demet Dinler, who teaches a Political Economy of Development course, said: “How is it possible that in an institution teaching and researching those [migration] issues, there is a huge gap between theory and practice?”
A spokesman from SOAS denied that the university had any control over the timing of the action, which comes in the wake of trade union activity over pay and conditions.
The recent Living Wage campaign and protests over the controversial sacking of cleaner and union activist Jose Stalin Bermudez, are cited by protestors as motivation for the deportations.
Labour MP John McDonnell said “As living wage campaigns are building in strength, we are increasingly seeing the use of immigration statuses to attack workers fighting against poverty wages and break trade union organising.
“The message is that they are happy to employ migrant labour on poverty wages, but if you complain they will send you back home. It is absolutely shameful.”
The university said that it was “legally obliged to co-operate fully with the authorities”.
A spokeswoman added “We have been informed that the checks were carried out in a sympathetic manner”.
The company ISS Cleaning and Hygiene Services, SOAS’s cleaning contractor has been accused of using immigration law to keep wages low after strikes by its employees working on tube trains were also followed by deportation of key activists. But ISS strongly denied a link between unionisation and the raids.
In a list of demands issued by members of the occupation, campaigners stipulate that SOAS should cease links with ISS and directly employ its own cleaners ‘in house’.
They also list the reinstatement of Stalin Bermudez and the School’s support for a campaign to return those cleaners already deported as key priorities.
A rally was held outside SOAS this afternoon, with around 200 attendees. Protestors chanted “immigration is no crime, bring back the SOAS 9″. The occupation has attracted media attention from BBC News and others.
One of the cleaners currently in detention said today: “We’re honest people not animals. We are just here to earn an honest living for our families.”
8 Responses to “Students occupy SOAS over cleaners’ deportation”
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Are the EDL just misunderstood?
- No, they're dangerous and have to be stopped. (72%)
- Yes. The media have just blown their true motivations out of proportion. (28%)
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After reading this post under the heading ‘News’ I was obliged to come to the conclusion that it was misplaced. Maybe not. A thinly veiled comment piece from the editor elect of the London Student, I hope is not an indicator that the publication is set for a rapid politicisation reflecting the editors own personal views and those loud and disruptive enough to dominate the discourse at SOAS. What I expect from journalism, is yes a reporting of the events as they occurred, but also an element of investigation into the facts of the issue. Not balance for balance sake, but neither a reporting of conspiracy, assertions and fallacy as if they are the story.
With my gripes over the journalistic value of the piece well and truly stated, it would not be particularly equitable of me to not comment on the substance itself. Before I do this I would like to make it clear that I am going to treat this as a comment piece reflecting the author’s own views, views which are more explicitly stated elsewhere.
The deliberately deceptive fudging of the two separate issues of how migrant workers are treated when they are here, and immigration control is where the author ultimately fails in trying to convince anyone outside of SOAS’s utopian enclave of her argument. Having worked with the Student Action for Refugee group for a number of years I have witnessed firsthand the appalling conditions which some migrant workers have to endure for pittance wages. It is an issue worthy of protest and campaign. However, does this mean then that the government should compensate low paid illegal immigrants by offering them asylum? To do so would firstly debase the whole concept of the rule of law, and secondly not actually address the issue.
If those deported were deemed to have been illegal immigrants (as inhumane a label that is) then it is right that they have been deported, unless they would be subject to persecution in their own countries. An intelligent debate on the instances where deportation is appropriate is of course a relevant discussion, but having read most of the posts on this issue I have failed to see a substantive challenge to the law as it stands. I am sure these challenges exist, and I am also sure that the sound bites in the article above are not them.
And finally, the implicit criticism that the college has rolled over or worse been complicit in the deportation of the workers is somewhat of a cheap shot. The students and author seem to expect the college to engage in an act of civil disobedience with real and far reaching implications for the institution, while they are content with occupying a college building. It is a lazy and popularist act. Having visited these so called occupations before they are often dominated by the protest mafia of SOAS who when questioned display a rather aggressive nature. How sad it is, that those that are so impassioned by the cause of these workers think that this is the best manifestation of solidarity they can show.
SOAS has the potential of being the free thinking, socially conscious environment which it thinks it is. But what it will take is the destruction of the machine (union, newspaper etc) which is always ready to mobilise on issues such as this, dictating and bullying those who dare to suggest alternative action. I am not suggesting that there is actually a ‘protest mafia’ as I flippantly suggested above, but I was hoping that the editor in waiting of the London Student would lead the way in promoting open discussion and debate as opposed to using her role as a platform for propaganda.
The very speedy deportations demonstrate that these cleaners had zero right to be in the UK. So-called human rights law would’ve halted the deportations if the cleaners had even the most superficial reason to be in the country.
The students are guilty of the most empty posturing. As if a university can appeal to the Home Office to override the law. Pathetic. And since when have universities been sanctuaries for illegal immigrants?!
As for Demet Dinler, he’s Turkish! Of course he couldn’t care less about the problem of illegal immigration into the UK. But Demet, what’s your take on *real* persecution against “the Other”? You know, like the Kurds and the Armenians?
So one of the cleaners currently in detention said “We’re honest people”. No you are not – you are an illegal immigrant. An honest person utilises the law and legally and honestly abides the regulations that EVERYONE else has to. An “honest person” does not sneak into a country on a tourist visa, lie to the authorities and then illegally overstay his/her visa and illegally work on pittance wages (thereby driving down the wages for indigenous workers).
‘Abid Gilani’, ‘An honest person’.. All I can say is pull your heads out. Nobody is illegal.
Presumably those trade unions backing the protest were opposed to Gordon Browns “British jobs for British Workers” speech.
Of course everyone should be let into the country, provided with a job with a living wage, a house, given an emmission free car and a goat.
Unfortunately we have spent all our money supporting the studies and lifestyles of the SOASs students so can’t afford this largesse.
[...] office to protest about cleaners who work at the university who face deportation. According to the London Student “the company ISS Cleaning and Hygiene Services, SOAS’s cleaning contractor has been accused [...]
Abid – You are welcome to write comment pieces for the paper, or indeed become a news writer. We are always looking for fair-minded people who take an interest in the news – get in touch!
The facts are here, there are no subliminal messages.
I’m not sure where you claim to have superior knowledge of my personal opinions from, but to read information from another source into the story is disingenuous.
Quotations from angry staff and students are not propaganda – they are the reasons stated for the protest. To omit the context of the story – Living Wage campaign etc – would be to leave the reader in the dark about the motivation of the protest, I’m sure you’ll agree a vital part of the story!
If the Home Office and ISS won’t give me a quote, I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to invent one.
Excuse me but I isn’t anyone worried about the trojan horse called amnesty? You do realize that your countries will be over-run by non-whites in a few years to come, don’t you? Aren’t you at all worried about the extinction of your race?
NO WAY! I finally came across this site! I’ve been trying to find this website for so long!!