Dear Kim,
In case you haven’t seen, I thought you might be interested in some of the coverage of this week’s strike by University of London security guards (attached and below), including one written by one of your security guards himself.
As I’m sure you are already aware by now, there appears to have been an incident of Cordant not abiding by Security Industry Authority (SIA) regulations as many of the “security guards” performing security duties at the protest were not displaying an ID badge. We also have reason to believe that some of these may not have even been licensed security guards. Indeed, as soon as we made an announcement at the protest about this, all of the non-ID’d “security guards” were shooed inside the building and Lee Smith (also performing security duties on the day) disappeared from the protest. Performing security duties without a license and using unlicensed security guards are criminal offenses which needless to say puts your workers at health and safety risks. We have had at least two complaints from our members that they were assaulted by these non-ID displaying and potentially unlicensed individuals. All of this was documented with photos and/or video at the time.
Outsourcing low paid staff in order to avoid giving them decent pay and terms and conditions is pretty bad. Promising them their pay differentials would be maintained and then reneging on that promise whilst sitting idly by as the use of 0 hours contracts becomes rampant on campus is worse. But allowing your contractor to bring in a bunch of 0 hours, unidentified, and potentially unlicensed security staff in order to break a legitimate strike is truly disgusting. I have already alerted the SIA to the issue and we are currently looking into the legality and criminal aspects of the entire operation as well as who is and is not licensed (e.g. Lee Smith). Trust me when I say we will get to the bottom of this and when we do we will pursue both University of London and Cordant to the full extent of the law.
Enjoy your bank holiday weekend!
best,
Jason
Independent Workers Union of Great Britain - Universities of London Branch 