Wildcat strike against job losses at Soas university in central London

Workers at Soas University of London held an unofficial strike on Thursday of last week.

Unison union members met in the morning and unanimously voted to walk out at 11am.

They are fighting restructuring that puts jobs at risk. The action followed an unofficial strike from 4pm on Monday of last week.

Sandy Nicholl is Unison branch secretary at Soas. He told Socialist Worker, “There are over 100 workers at risk of redundancy, and we are facing a loss of 30 jobs.

“We’re also facing the downgrading of other jobs. Unison is in the process of balloting but today people felt they couldn’t wait for the official process. The mass meeting voted to walk out—and to do it again on 2 April to lobby the board of trustees. And we’re now campaigning to say we have no confidence in the senior management.”

Students and UCU union members came to a strikers’ rally and protest to show support. Student Irang told Socialist Worker that a lot of students joined the protest. “It’s not just about workers’ jobs being threatened.

“It’s all about the neoliberalism and austerity in general that affects all of us,” he said.