From today every single SOAS worker is employed directly on SOAS terms and conditions.

This is massive – they fought for TEN YEARS for this.

Huge congratulations to all the workers and campaigners – and a special shout out to the great Sandy Nicoll…

University of London?

Thanks to UCU for passing on the reply below from Chris Cobb with some more concrete details as to the in-house process and timetable.

For the first time we have some almost concrete dates for some workers. The key section is below, and should be viewed as a massive concrete success for the in-house campaign, in that we now know that soon many outsourced workers will be in-house.

In other words, our tactics are working.

However, it is now even more important that we intensify our efforts when the new academic year starts to force the University to ensure ALL workers are in-house by June next year. (Details of the next steps of the campaign will follow soon!)

The current planning is focused on the following services: security, reception, switchboard, porters, post room, AV and cleaning. 

If our current planning progresses as anticipated and our plans are subsequently accepted by the Board of Trustees in the autumn, our aim would be to put in a place an in-house service provision for reception, porters, post room and AV during the second and third (calendar) quarters of 2019.

You will understand that we are not able to be absolute in our timings and the above provisional timings will be subject to discussion with our suppliers and further informed by our, and our suppliers, statutory obligations in respect of the people they (our suppliers) employ to work at the University.

The security and cleaning services are quite complex in that they involve more work streams than the other services and rely on specialist contractors to an extent that the other services do not.  The planning in relation to these services will inevitably therefore take longer.  Our aim however is to be in a position to outline a provisional timeline in relation to cleaning services by the end of October 2018 and in relation to security by December 2018.

We are not yet in a position to add anything by way of further update in relation to our hard FM, catering and grounds services for the reasons set out in the statement of 29^th June 2018.  Please be assured however that we remain in active discussion with the current service providers.

The full letter is available here.

Following the recent creation of new posts for health and safety and women’s officers, it has been suggested that we should also create a black and minority ethnic officer.

Given the large proportion of BME members in the UoL branch AND the ongoing discrimination many of them face as outsourced workers we are keen to make sure that they are properly represented.

We will be voting on this at the next branch meeting (Wednesday 29 August, 1230, Lower Mezzanine Floor) and it would be great to have your thoughts and for anyone interested to volunteer.

Drop Danny dannymillum@iwgb.co.uk if you have any questions.

This sis just a quick heads up that on Saturday 15 September we will be having a party to raise strike funds for our IWGB in-house campaign, featuring:

• music
• dancing
• food
• drink
• bingo and raffle

All members and non-members are welcome from 4.30-11.30 in the Student Union at SOAS. More details to follow!

TOD@S BIENVENID@S – 15 SEPTIEMBRE 4PM-11:30PM

• ENTRADA GRATIS
• BINGO – ¡Se puede ganar hasta £150 y mucho más!
• RIFAS – ¡Se puede ganar cenas gratis y mucho más!
• BAILE
• COMIDA

SOAS
10 Thornhaugh St
Russell Square
London WC1H 0XG

At last week’s branch we voted unanimously to create 2 new positions:

• Women’s Officer
• Health and Safety Officer

Jonathan Blaney was elected as Health and Safety Officer – if anyone has any issues realting to health and saftey that they would like the union to take forward then please contact him at jonathan.blaney@sas.ac.uk.

Anyone interested in the Women’s Officer position should email catherinemorrissey@iwgb.co.uk – we’ll be electing the new officer at the next meeting!

So if you remember the London Weighting campaign, we ended up having to settle for a gradual increase up to c3500 – and the University suggested that the issue was now closed….

However, it’s come to our attention that there was a clause in the original agreement which allowed LW to be revisited if the London Living Wage went up by more than 6% by 2018.

They obviously thought it wouldn’t happen – BUT IT DID!

We have just sent the following email to Simon Cain and Chris Cobb – do give Danny (dannymillum@iwgb.co.uk) or Rebecca (rebeccadooley@iwgb.org.uk) a shout with any thoughts….

Dear Simon

I am writing with regard to the issue of London Weighting at the University of London, which as I am sure you were aware was the subject of a campaign in 2014/2015 which saw the following offer eventually imposed:

1. LW to increase by equal amounts of £273 every year from 1 August 2014 up to £3,500 on 1 August 2018. The rates would therefore be:

01/08/2014　　 £2,407

01/08/2015　　 £2,680

01/08/2016　　 £2,954

01/08/2017　　£3,227

01/08/2018　　 £3,500

2. LW to be consolidated into basic pay with immediate effect.
3. Any national pay increases in the period to 2018 to only apply to pay less LW (i.e. LW will not go up any further than the amounts specified above in the four-year period). Any national pay increases after 2018 will be applied in full to consolidated pay;
4. If the London Living Wage (currently £9.15) rises by 6% or more between now and 2018, London Weighting can be reviewed again during that period. If the rise in the LLW is below 6% then discussions will not be entered into.

As you can see, the trigger for the London Weighting settlement to be reopened was to be a rise of MORE than 6% in the London Living Wage.

The London Living Wage rose to £10.20 in November 2017. This is an increase of 11.5% on the 2014 rate.

As such, it is clear that London Weighting has been completely outstripped by the cost of living in London as defined by the Resolution Foundation and overseen by the Living Wage Commission, based on the best available evidence about living standards in London and the UK.

 Can you therefore confirm that London Weighting will be reviewed, in line with the commitments made by the University at the time?

Best wishes

Danny