At the LSE

by New Worker correspondent

The London School of Economics, which older readers will recall was founded by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, authors of an important history of British trade unions, has acted viciously towards the leader of the 2017 strike by cleaners.
    Jamaican born Mildred Simpson, a member of the small non-TUC union, United Voices of the World, is a cleaner with 21 years of service at the LSE where she successfully led a strike which saw the ending of outsourcing. Now she is facing disciplinary action on very flimsy grounds with the aim of getting her sacked just before she reaches retirement age.
    Her alleged offence was to leave her post 15 minutes before the end of her shift on no less than three times in over two years.
    This she correctly points out is “all down to bullying and victimisation. I feel that they’ve been targeting me for years” she tells us. This constant picking on me seemed to intensify after our successful strike against outsourcing. I suspect this repetitive singling out has to do far more with my union activities than anything else.”
    Like many low paid workers she has effectively two jobs at the LSE: First as a cleaner from 6 am to 8.30 am and later as a janitor from 9 am to 5 pm. That long day is even longer because although her shift starts she is “in LSE every morning from around 5:15am because I’m a team leader and I want to have enough time before my actual shift starts so everything is ready before my team arrives.”
    As a reward for her trade union activities: “I’ve had several meetings about minor issues which have fizzled out without any result, but this constant picking on me seemed to intensify after our successful strike against outsourcing. I suspect this repetitive singling out has to do far more with my union activities than anything else.”
    She has also complained about understaffing which bosses interpret as her not being able to do her job properly, which she feels is unfair.
    As result of the stress from this victimisation she has been signed off sick by her doctor and had go to counselling to be able to cope.
    Despite this she remains defiant and advises any workers in a similar position to “keep your spirits up, keep your strength up, because we, in the union, support each other. Whatever they are doing to us, we are not standing down”.
    It is a pity that small street unions such as UVW are necessary. They are essentially the result of the big general unions, Unite, Unison and GMB failing to organise the migrant workers who make up the majority of cleaning workers. They have the resources to do so, but many of their recruitment campaigns begin and end with a photo-shoot with the General Secretary instead of the sustained work necessary. Among the TUC unions, only RMT have deployed their resources in this direction.

Remembering a comrade

Robyn Harris and Andy Brooks

By New Worker correspondent

Comrades and friends gathered at the India Club in London’s West End last weekend for a memorial dinner for Neil Harris, a leading member of the New Communist Party who spent many happy times in its bar and restaurant.

NCP leader Andy Brooks and several members of the Central Committee, including Daphne Liddle, Peter Hendy and Theo Russell, joined the throng that also included members of Neil’s jazz club and friends from his days at college in London.

Neil passed away in March after a long battle against cancer and the dinner was held on the eve of what would have been his 60^th birthday on 4^th November.  

The India Club has been a frequent venue for comrades over the years as well as students from the nearby London School of Economics. Neil was one of them in the 1970s and many of his LSE friends turned up to recall fond memories of Neil’s student days with his widow, Robyn, and others during the evening.

The venue, based in a hotel in the Strand, was originally set up as a meeting place for the India League, a British organisation that campaigned for India’s independence. The club itself was started by Krishna Menon, the left-wing Congress leader who was India's first High Commissioner to Britain after independence in 1947. Though no longer a club, the restaurant and bar is still frequented by Indian diplomats, students and journalists.

Defending the DPRK at LSE

leafleting outside the hall

by New Worker correspondent

Korean solidarity activists were outside the London School of Economics (LSE) last weekend to leaflet a seminar that purported to “provide a platform for detailed discussions on various aspects of North Korea, from North Korean society to the prospects for, and challenges of, Korean unification”. What they mean by ‘unification’ is really south Korea absorbing the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). So basically this was a regime change conference organised by those hostile to the socialist system of the DPRK and the Juche Idea.

Last Saturday Korea Friendship Association (KFA) Chair Dermot Hudson and NCP leader Andy Brooks joined student supporters of the Korean revolution putting the record straight with KFA leaflets and presenting the other side of the story in face-to-face discussion with participants entering and leaving the building. 

The conference was, in fact, simply a propaganda forum organised by the south Korean puppet regime and sponsored by the Doosan Group, a south Korean manufacturing and construction conglomerate that employs 41,400 workers in 38 countries. The speakers were drawn from the usual circle of pro-imperialist academics and journalists, along with a number of south Korean diplomats and former ministers. Needless to say, no DPRK representative or representative of the KFA was asked to attend the conference.

LSE occupiers call for free education

 by New Worker correspondent

AROUND 300 people took part in a march through the campus of London School of Economics (LSE) on Thursday 19th March, in support of a student occupation there of a room in the LSE’s Old Building.

The students are campaigning for free higher education and lobbying the Government to scrap tuition fees.

They are also opposing counter-terror legislation, calling for an end to zero-hours contracts for university staff and for a boycott of companies that profit from trade with Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

The students marched through the campus and then held a sit-down protest outside the Royal College of Surgeons, where cleaners in the Unison union have been campaigning over pay.

The cleaners, who are mainly migrants, had joined the march with their Unison banner. And one of them spoke at the protest.