immigration

Today saw SolFedders join with some 100 members of the public to support an unofficial strike by University of London cleaners at Senate House.  The cleaners, who are primarily Latin American immigrants and who are employed by the privateer Balfour Beatty, struck over unpaid wages. With some cleaners not having been paid for three months, it was decided yesterday that official union channels weren’t working and the workers called for a strike to begin today at 8am. 

As well as facing the consequences and disrespect of unpaid wages, the workers and make less than cleaners at nearby SOAS and Birkbeck, who've secured the so-called the “London Living Wage”. Considering that this is Balfour Beatty's first contract in higher education, the role of privisation, cuts, and a living wage formed the backdrop for today's noisy protest and work stoppage.

Fears are growing for the 72 immigrant workers detained by the UK  Border Agency  (UKBA) at Guy and St Thomas’ Hospital, London in Februrary.  Very  little is known of the whereabouts of the 72 disappeared, who had been contracted to work as ancillary staff in the hospital by Reed temp agency. 

The only definitive update to emerge since the raid is that three of them have pleaded guilty to ‘fraud’, a charge levied against  them for collecting their ‘illegal’ wages from the hospital (as if  cleaning toilets for minimum wage wasn’t bad enough).

When the UK Border Agency (UKBA) carried out a raid on 6 January 2011 they did so under several pretexts. While immigration raids are carried out on a regular basis across London, the size and scale of the raid at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital suggests a concerted campaign to flush out a number of illegals who were working there under quite appalling conditions. These attacks on the migrant community have to be seen in light of NHS ‘reforms’ and the forcing of the unemployed into compulsory work and the low-pay economy.

A demo called Friday evening 18 February at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital highlighted the blight of three detainees and more than 72 workers in the Hospital who had fled without trace since the UKBA raid. A gathering of more than 50 people from a number of campaigns and groups ensured the matter was brought to the attention of a receptive general public despite the over zealous attitude of a number of security staff. 

Where are the St Thomas' disappeared?

Where are our workmates?

Last month 72 workers disappeared from Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals. They were part of the hospitals’ ancillary staff. They are migrants. Where did they disappear to? The economic crisis means their cheap labour is not as useful anymore – at least for the moment. So the UK Border Agency was called in to get rid of them. The NHS trust complied. The workers were either arrested or deported.

The workers who clean the hospital and feed the patients earn around the minimum wage. And due to the UKBA the workers are not even always paid for their hard work. Isn’t this slavery?

As hospital users, as workers, as trade unionists, as migrants’ rights activists we cannot stay silent in the face of this brutality. Exactly when cuts and privatisation are threatening our public health service the exploitation of migrant labour increases. This is an attack on all workers.

The current “debate” about immigration focuses on economic arguments, with the bosses arguing that they need “skilled migrants” to fill gaps in the workforce. This is a partial truth, the other side of the coin is that migrant workers are also needed to do the low-status “unskilled” jobs as cleaners, security guards, agricultural labourers and workers in food processing plants which “native” workers can’t be dragooned into doing. However, the argument that immigration is “good for the economy” is not one we should adopt. “The economy” is the value of what the ruling class own, increased through our exploitation; anarcho-syndicalists reject the social democratic view that capitalism can be managed for the good of the working class.

September 10th marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Rudolf Rocker, an occasion which prompted the Argentinian anarchist journal, La Protesta, to write: “With the passing of the old and dearly loved master the cycle of a brilliant generation of anarchist thinkers and militants is closed.” Here we look at some of Rocker’s contributions to the working class movement

The Early Years

Cleaners win
The Living Wage Campaign at University College London (UCL) has claimed victory after the university agreed to pay cleaners the London Living Wage. The living wage is meant to be introduced over the next two years. The UCL Living Wage Campaign was formed two years ago and is an alliance of cleaners, students, academics, and staff.

For years London universities have been paying low wages to their cleaners. To date, thanks to pressure from various groups and campaigns, all London universities except University College London have been forced to pay their cleaners above the minimum wage and raise pay to at least the London Living Wage. The Campaign at UCL has vowed not to disband until the London Living Wage is fully implemented and all low-paid staff are well organised.

Minorities and immigrants have been hit by another wave of European racism and discrimination. French President Sarkozy’s expulsion of Roma and travellers’ camps met with international condemnation and demonstrations in the streets, but continues unabated now that the legal threat from the EU has been lifted.

Also in France, the proposed burqa ban, under the veil of being an education in republican values is a message to the muslim community - one that is echoed in Belgium, Holland and Switzerland.

Nothing demonstrates the both the inequity rife in Blair's Britain and the true blight of “asylum” seekers than the death of a 47-year-old man in a basement rubbish room of the Café Royal in London. For two years, while the rich dined in opulent splendour upstairs the man lived in the bowels of the hotel behind the rubbish bins.

When his naked and badly bruised body was discovered, police first though he had been murdered, before it was established that he lived naked due to the heat generated by the basement boilers and a post-mortem found that his injuries were consistent with a fall. The man had been an immigrant worker employed by an agency – one of thousands without papers who are forced to work for a pittance in hotels across London.