On this day, 12 June 2009, cleaning workers at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London working for the subcontractor ISS were called to an emergency "staff meeting," which was actually an ambush by immigration officers.
The cleaners, mostly members of public sector union UNISON, had been organising for some time for better pay and conditions, and had recently successfully achieved union recognition and the London living wage. At the bogus meeting, 40 UK Border Agency officials detained the workers, then handcuffed and took away nine of them, including one worker who was six months pregnant. Workers believe the raid was in retaliation for their organising activity.
Some of the workers, like Rosa Perez from Nicaragua, were deported without even being given the required 72 hours notice. One union member was flown to Colombia just 48 hours after her arrest, in the same clothes, with just £0.75 in her pocket and dumped in Bogotá, hundreds of miles from her home town.
Another of the workers reportedly suffered a heart attack during the ordeal and was denied medical attention – and not even given water.
Despite the deportations, the other workers kept up their fight and after various strikes and occupations by students, in 2017 they achieved their goal of being taken back in-house to be employed directly by the university.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8412/SOAS-9-deportations
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