Having braved the rain to declare opposition to institutional racism yesterday, today QMUCU members initially focused their attention on the campaign against casualisation, highlighting the key issues in flyers addressed to students:
Please join us in continuing to pile on the pressure and articulate the various strands of our “Four Fights” and USS Pension campaigns by signing up to the pickets here.
Late in the morning Mile End picketers walked down to visit our comrades on the Whitechapel pickets, flying the branch’s purple solidarity banner outside the Garrod Building.
On the teach-out front, this morning we started with an event focused on “Strikes, Health, and Human Rights” – led by Neve Gordon from the Law School. Then in the early afternoon we moved on to an interactive seminar led by QM Kurdish Society, focused on the question of why Kurds do not have a country. In the late afternoon Waseem Yaqoob of the School of History introduced and led a discussion of Margarethe von Trotta’s 1986 film Rosa Luxemburg.
Find out more about future teach-outs here.
The Mile End pickets were also visited by Jana, the partner of Rayan Crawford. Tower Hamlets resident Rayan, who came to Britain when he was just twelve, was among those deported from Britain to Jamaica two weeks ago, separated from Jana and their two sons, aged twelve and three. He suffers from Blount’s disease but was deported with no money, no belongings, no medication and no support plan for his medical condition in Jamaica. Picketers heard about Rayan’s case and signed the Bring Ryan Back campaign petition.
Support from the local community has been fantastic. The National Education Union (Tower Hamlets and The City branch) yesterday voted at their regional executive meeting to donate £500 to our branch hardship fund.
Looking forward
Tomorrow is a big day on the QMUCU pickets. As well as continuing our regular campaigning, the morning will feature a teach-out on the history of UK trade unions in the chaplaincy. Then, from 11am, we will assemble and travel to Bloomsbury to join the UCU London Region demo march to the City of London. Please come and join us.
qmucu.org 