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Issue 848 | 09.2.16
Newspaper of the LSE Students’ Union
Students and Staff Unite to Demand the Reinstatement of the ‘LSE 3’ Joey Davison Undergraduate Student
THE RECENT REMOVAL OF 3 members of LSE cleaning and janitorial services staff from their posts in November has sparked an outraged response across the school community. On Tuesday 2nd February 2016, a Facebook infographic from United Voices of the World (UVW) Union alerted students and staff to the dismissal of three of their members calling themselves the ‘LSE 3’. Henry, Earney and Kingsley were fired without notice pay for leaving work one hour early on a Saturday evening, after having worked through their lunch breaks and completed all of their tasks. The dismissal has left the LSE 3 without work since November, drastically reducing their ability to pay their rent and support their families in an increasingly expensive London. All three are now facing eviction from their homes. UVW, staff & students are arguing that the decision to instantly dismiss without even notice pay is heavily punitive and disproportionate to the offence. UVW appealed the dismissal, calling it ‘symptomatic of a contemptuous, callous and punitive culture of work which the LSE should not be condoning
or tolerating in any way.” They have highlighted an impeccable record of a collective 20+ years of employment at the school without missing a single day of employment. Students, staff and the Student’s Union have also raised calls upon the school to reconcile the situation. UVW is calling for those concerned to contact Allan Blair, Director of Facilities Management, and demand the overturn of this decision. However, the dismissal is complicated by the nature of their employment. LSE outsources its cleaning services to a company called NOONAN Cleaning Services, which means they are not directly responsible for their employment. The decision to sack the LSE 3 was NOONAN’s, not the LSE’s. Campaigners are arguing that although not legally liable for their contracts, the Facilities team hold significant influence over NOONAN and a moral responsibility to its staff. This position was made clear in Allan Blair’s response to emails, which stated that “LSE is committed to ensuring fair treatment and conditions for all staff working at the School. This includes staff employed via a contractor.” It is this commitment to fair
Credit: United Voices of the World the union facebook page
treatment of all staff and a duty of care which campaigners are hoping to emphasise in order to put pressure on the school to reverse the decision. Following the response from the staff and student body, Allan Blair met with Henry and Earney (Kingsley was unable to make the meeting due to a last minute family emergency), a UVW representative, Professional
Services Staff and students on Thursday 4th to discuss the situation with them. This was the first opportunity that Henry and Earney had had to speak directly to the school rather than with NOONAN. They both gave their version of events of the day, and Earney explained her desire to go home after having completed all tasks due to a pain in
her knee, as well as explaining the absence of a supervisor or manager on site to ask permission from. Henry explained the difficulties losing his position has put him in with regard to looking after his family. Both felt their treatment by NOONAN and the LSE to be deeply unfair, and placed emphasis on their simple desire to return to their place of work. Continued on page 3
Comment: In Response to the Free Speech Society Only through rational debate can we expose this disingenuous students’ society.
Samar Rizvi Undergraduate Student
THE LSESU SOCIETY, AS A concept, is in crisis. Where once Laski, Robbins, Hayek or Halliday might have been brought in to rouse a crowd and promote robust debate, glorified mailing lists appear to be the norm. What history student hasn’t regretted the many pounds spent on joining groups that, despite their sleek websites and long list of corporate sponsors, do little more than send out a weekly mailing list with
information otherwise obtainable online? Yet these organisations have some sense of purpose and more importantly do not moralise. While they don’t necessarily promote debate on the important issues of our times, most of them are aware of their organisation’s remit, geographic or otherwise. As a result, the Asia Careers Society (one such society of this type) is not the most ludicrous organisation in the circus tent under which our student organisations are housed. That distinction goes to the latest
addition to the show. Organised free speech has always been quite a remarkable contradiction in terms. The whole concept, in its latest manifestation on campus, taken at face value, is irritatingly shallow in its desire to prescribe that which has been proscribed; a sophisticated form of resistance à la a toddler who has been told not to touch wet paint. This organisation is ill defined and unwittingly parochial. Frustratingly, it argues only to win arguments. It doesn’t do so for moral or intellectual
edification. Christopher Hitchens once lambasted a Fox News presenter for giving him “the awful impression... of someone who hasn’t read any of the arguments against [his] position ever.” This is one of my main problems with the Free Speech Society. Setting up a free speech society is indicative of an unashamedly liberal, haughty presumptuousness (liberal in the 19th century Gladstone, lets go educate those uncivilised natives and price them out of their own market
News Comment
Barclays vs. RAG; Is the LSE SU placing A Vitriolic Response to the Free corporate interests above student interests? Speech Debate on Campus Page 3 Page 10
through free trade sort of way not liberal meaning plural or progressive). Personally I am not in favour of safe spaces taken to their extreme and as a history student certainly not trigger warnings. Nonetheless, it is imperious to assume that the only reason people institute these measures is because they are neither inclined nor capable of thinking independently and therefore have a proclivity for “groupthink”. Where does one begin, in a short column like this, to address such arrogance? Continued on page 10