On Thursday 4th April, outsourced UNISON workers gathered in the central quad to protest against UCL’s practice of outsourcing as part of the Bring Them In campaign. You can view a video of the protest here: http://tinyurl.com/uclprotest
We are the cleaners, catering and security staff working at University College London. We may not be as important to UCL as renowned professors, but without our work, the university couldn’t function. We are proud to keep UCL clean, its staff, students and visitors safe and well fed.
UCL offers their staff good terms and conditions, however these are not available to us. This is because UCL outsources the services we provide to private companies, currently Sodexo and Axis, who we are then employed by. We have been asking for decent working conditions for years, but this just falls on deaf ears. That is why we have started campaigning for UCL to recognise our humanity and our hard work and bring us back in house.
UCL is one of the wealthiest universities in the UK - they reported an operating surplus of £85 million in November 2018. UCL claim that they care about equality yet they're saving money on us, the lowest paid workers.
Why don't we deserve the same benefits as our directly employed colleagues? We get sick, need holiday breaks and pension just the same as higher paid staff at UCL.
SOAS and LSE have already done it, and Kings College, Goldsmiths, Birkbeck and University of London have all committed to bringing their outsourced staff back in. If they’ve managed to, UCL can too.
UCL Council are deciding our fate in the next few weeks. Please help us put pressure on them to make the right decision by signing our petition.
#BringThemIn
For more information on our campaign, please visit: https://uclunison.wordpress.com/bringthemin-insourcing-at-ucl/
For media enquiries contact our team
Sources:
Link to UNISON Letter to the Provost
Link to UCL UNISON website and BringThemIn Twitter page
Link to UCL Financial report
Link to UCL equality, diversity and inclusion statement
About Athena Swan
