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Protest or Trespass?

Oscar Webb

For the past year, outsourced workers at the University of London have been demanding 3 Cosas – pensions, sick pay and holiday pay on the same terms as directly employed staff – and staging regular protests at Senate House with the support of students. Last week the university tried to put a stop to them.

‘The University’s management is no longer willing to tolerate demonstrations in Senate House, the cloister entrance and the East and West car-parks,’ the students’ union was informed on 26 July. ‘If this policy is not followed then the University will consider protesters to be trespassing on University property and will take all the necessary legal measures to prevent and prosecute such trespass.’ The policy applies to all protests, a university spokesperson said, not only the 3 Cosas. ‘We’re not being discriminatory.’

Two weeks ago, police officers were called onto campus after ‘sick pay, holidays, pensions now’ was written in chalk on the Senate House foundation stone. The police arrested a woman for criminal damage. I filmed the arrest on my phone. and two counts of assaulting a police officer. In her preliminary hearing last week at Highbury Corner Magistrates she pleaded not guilty to one charge of criminal damage and two charges of assaulting a police officer. Her trial is set for October.

Michael Chessum, the president of ULU, said: ‘In attempting to ban legitimate protest from the core of its campus, University management has simultaneously revealed its moral cowardice and its practical inability to contain the 3 Cosas Campaign ... we will defy the administration if we have to.’ Three demonstrations are planned for this week.

A university spokesperson said ‘we’re a good employer’ and ‘the university is in a constructive dialogue with Unison.’ But most outsourced workers are not members of Unison. More of them belong to the International Workers of Great Britain, which the university won’t talk to. The vice-chancellor told the IWGB in an email that ‘the University will not engage with any non-recognised trade union or other groups that seek to disrupt our work or that of our staff, students and visitors.’

university of london employment protests

Comments

  • 6 August 2013 at 4:09pm
    jeremyjh says:
    We're talking about a bit of chalk, not burning the place down, smashing windows or even a spot of indelible marker, all of which would be more serious.

    There is no excuse for this. Of course, where lasting damage is caused to property, there is a case for disciplinary consequences. However, the apparent blanket ban on all protests is appalling, particularly in the context that such protests can reasonably target the university over its practices. The seeming determination of the university authorities to prevent discourse and shore up indefensible employment practices is shameful.
  • 7 August 2013 at 5:59pm
    GaryArnold says:
    Scandalous stuff. If I were an outsourced worker I'd see about joining Unison pronto. Not much use in a union that can't even get an invitation to the negotiations, is there?
    • 8 August 2013 at 9:09am
      Rikkeh says: @ GaryArnold
      This earlier post on the LRB Blog suggests why they aren't doing that. Based on Harry Stopes' report, Unison haven't exactly covered themselves in glory when they've been representing these people in the past:

      http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/04/09/harry-stopes/miembros-no-numeros/
  • 9 August 2013 at 4:57pm
    Harry Stopes says:
    I suspect Mr Arnold is being disingenuous.