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Cleaners at SOAS will take two days of strike action on Tuesday 4th and Wednesday 5th March in their dispute over working terms and conditions, it has been announced. The decision to take the strike action follows a ballot of cleaners who are members of the trade union UNISON, who
News
Academic staff will boycott marking coursework and exams in an escalation of their dispute over pay if employers don’t engage in negotiations, the University and Colleges Union (UCU) has announced. UCU has given the University and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), the body which represents SOAS and other university employers,
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Cleaners working at SOAS have voted in favour of taking strike action over their sick pay, holiday pay and pensions, their union, UNISON, has said. According to UNISON, 100% of cleaners voted “yes” in the three week-long postal ballot on a turnout of 62%. The cleaners are outsourced to facilities
National News
Tom King, BA Politics The Metropolitan Police have paid £40,000 in compensation after “shocking” inconsistencies in police accounts of arrests at a tuition fee protest at SOAS in 2011. Ashok Kumar and Simon Behrman were wrestled to the grounded and arrested by police at a demonstration prompted by a
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Students can now vote in the referendum on the future of ULU until 7th February, after union officers decided to extend the deadline for colleges to organise ballots. The decision was taken after several colleges failed to hold the referendum by 12th December, the original deadline. Michael Chessum, ULU President,
News
Caterers Elior are at the heart of a new scandal over the treatment of outsourced workers at SOAS after whistleblowers revealed a catalogue of complaints to The SOAS Spirit. Elior employs a number of workers at SOAS on precarious casual contracts, where workers have no guaranteed hours per week and
International News
By Sabeehah Motala, LLB Law On Thursday 5th December, the world lost arguably the most iconic politician that ever lived. Mr Mandela – a leader, father of a nation, revolutionary, freedom-fighter, boxer and lawyer – passed away in the comfort of his home in Johannesburg, South Africa. The anti-Apartheid hero has found
International News
“This is not a company, it is a university. We are not clients, we are students,” METU students in Ankara. Students of the Middle Eastern Technical University (METU), Ankara, have taken matters into their own hands after government-sponsored construction workers deforested several trees in the university fields in the hope
Buddhist
Suu Kyi dismisses ethnic cleansing claims. Pro-democracy campaigner and general secretary of the opposition National League for Democracy party Aung San Suu Kyi has dismissed claims of ethnic cleansing against Burma’s Royhinga Muslim minority. Speaking to the BBC’s Mishal Husain on 24 October, Suu Kyi responded to accusations
National News
A demonstration opposing the abolition of the University of London Union (ULU) by University of London management has ended in clashes with police. Around 200 protesters assembled outside ULU and processed through Bloomsbury, passing Birkbeck and SOAS. The University of London, which has banned protests from taking place at Senate
News
Mohammad Tahboub and Tom King [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7im3vcp7GfM&desktop_uri=/watch?v%3D7im3vcp7GfM&app=desktop] Pro-coup talk called off after Muslim Brotherhood protest A video published online and obtained by The SOAS Spirit shows a representative of the Egyptian Tamaroud movement being chased
News
The University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) has received what is said to be one of the biggest donations ever to a UK university. The £20m gift would be “transformational”, SOAS said to the BBC. Read the full story here.