We’ve written to our union colleagues at Birkbeck, SOAS, LSE, City, UCL, KCL and RHUL asking for their support for our security officers’ strike next Tuesday and Wednesday. We’ve asked them to help us, and you can too! You can:

• Attend the picket line and let the University of London that it can’t treat its staff this way.
• Spread the word amongst colleagues and friends.
• Write to UOL Chief Operating Officer Chris Cobb expressing you unhappiness with his handling of the security officers at chris.cobb@london.ac.uk.
• Support the security officers by contributing to the Crowdpac.
• Support the IWGB on social media: Facebook & Twitter. 

The text of our letter is below:

Hi,

I hope this email finds you well. The IWGB are writing today to see if we can count on your support to stand up for the employment rights of your fellow staff at the University of London.

The IWGB has announced a second round of strikes of security officers working at the University of London central administration buildings on the 16th and 17th of May. You can find more information on this press release.

The security officers are demanding an end to zero-hours contracts and that the university implement a pay rise it promised six years.

The first strike held on the 25th and 26th of April received wide coverage in the press, being picked up by the Huffington Post, The Guardian, Novara Media & the Camden New Journal. 

You can support the security officers how you see fit. We suggest that you either:

• Attend the picket line and let the University of London that it can’t treat its staff this way.
• Spread the word amongst colleagues and friends.
• Write to UOL Chief Operating Officer Chris Cobb expressing you unhappiness with his handling of the security officers at chris.cobb@london.ac.uk.
• Support the security officers by contributing to the Crowdpac.
• Support the IWGB on social media: Facebook & Twitter. 

For further details you can reply to this e-mail or by calling our central office, the telephone number is listed below.

In solidarity,

Patrick Laredo.

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

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/25/love-job-security-guard-but-subtle-apartheid-strike#comments

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/zero-hours-and-short-hours-contracts_uk_59021d50e4b0026db1df4159

The second security officers’ strike will take place on 16 and 17 May! Watch this space for more information.

If you’d like to come and support us, check out the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2000893040139028/ and please donate to our strike fund if you can!

Here’s a couple of articles about this week’s security officers’ strike:

An report on the strike from Joe Hayns for Novara Media: http://novaramedia.com/2017/04/27/the-security-officers-striking-for-their-security/

Our own Abdul Baksh explained the reasons for the strike in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/25/love-job-security-guard-but-subtle-apartheid-strike

You can now find photos and videos of the Security Officers’ two-day strike on our Facebook page. Thanks to everyone who came out and showed support!

https://www.facebook.com/pg/IWGBunion/photos/?tab=album&album_id=621628234702810

And thanks to Peter Marshall for this album:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10158329159790467.1073742170.785785466&type=1&l=6f38b41e02&hc_location=ufi

Around ten University of London buildings will be shut down on 25th and 26th April as the majority of the central university’s 60 security officers go on strike.

The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) sent today the notice of industrial action to Cordant, the company that has the contract for the provision of security officers in the University of London’s central administration buildings. The union is demanding an end to zero-hour contracts, proper itemised payslips, and a 25% increase in pay for all security officers, increasing the salary of the lowest paid officer to around £12 an hour.

While the pay of other workers at the university has increased in recent years, that of security officers has stagnated, breaking a commitment the university had made in 2011 to maintain pay differentials between different types of workers.

“The security officers strike at the University of London goes to the heart of the problem of outsourcing in universities,” said IWGB General Secretary Dr Jason Moyer Lee. “The university blames the contractor, the contractor blames the university and the workers lose out. Let’s see if paralysing the university’s operations for two days pushes them to act.”

Cordant has so far been unwilling to negotiate with the IWGB on the matter of pay, while the University of London has said dealing with this issue is not its responsibility.

“We are determined to take industrial action, which has been caused by the university breaking their promise,” says University of London security officer and IWGB representative Abdul Bakhsh. “We do not want to disrupt the lives of students, who we are here to help, but we feel we cannot do our job properly if the University doesn’t keep its promises.”

The strike will affect the following university buildings: Senate House, Stewart House, the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies, Student Central (formerly University of London Student Union), the Warburg Institute and five halls of residence: Nutford House, Lilian Penson, Connaught Hall, College Hall and International Hall.

The IWGB is a campaigning union, which has waged a number of high profile campaigns such as for the London Living Wage at the Royal Opera House and at John Lewis, and the 3 Cosas Campaign (sick pay, holidays, and pensions) at the University of London. Other campaigns have been waged over bullying and harassment as well as improved pay for university employees (London Weighting).

For more information:
Dr Jason Moyer-Lee, IWGB General Secretary
press@iwgb.org.uk