We are cleaners, porters, post-room and security staff at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). We are a majority Black, Asian, Latin American and migrant workforce. Many of us have worked for years at LSHTM and we work hard to keep this university running. We are fighting for an end to discrimination and for fair and dignified pay.

LSHTM committed last August to bring us in-house and end outsourcing, after we launched a campaign. We are due to come in-house in August 2022. However, management has refused to negotiate over pay with us or recognise our union for the past 6 months. Since we began our pay campaign, LSHTM management has victimised us, with six of our union members facing disciplinary action.

We are now less than 45 days away from the transfer to in-house and we have no information on how our working conditions will be once we are brought in-house.

This is a fight for equality, justice and dignity. It is also a fight for all workers. If we can win this fight, it will raise the bar for other employers to pay dignified and fair wages too. It is time for LSHTM to listen to our demands.

We have recently successfully balloted for strike with a 100% vote ‘yes’ to strike. We are raising money for our strike fund so we can provide hardship funds to colleagues who need it to take part in strike action.

We are low-wage workers and it can be hard for us to be able to take multiple days of strike without any pay from their employer. Our union - the IWGB - is a small (but fierce) union and it does not have large strike funds to support this sort of action. That is why we are asking the public for support.

Any money you can give to support this strike fund will make a huge difference to our ability to win.

Any funds that are not needed for the LSHTM strike will go towards the IWGB Universities of London Branch fighting fund.