University of Arts London (UAL), second best university in the world for Art and Design, has recently invested £8.2 (23-24) million into its Social Purpose Institute which claims to “to make the world a better place” and “embed our social purpose in everything we do”. Such lofty claims are hollow whilst cleaners at UAL, who do fundamental work to keep the university running, are outsourced to the multinational company OCS. This letter-writing campaign targets the university’s interim Vice-Chancellor Karen Stanton, members of Executive Board, the most powerful people within UAL, as well as key figures in the Social Purpose Institute. It asks them to rectify the injustices of outsourcing happening everyday at UAL.

At UAL, cleaners and other facilities staff work for OCS under sub-standard terms and conditions compared to those directly employed by UAL. Not only are they subjected to inferior holiday leave, parental leave, sick pay and pension schemes, but they also have to work within a toxic environment, where bullying and harassment at the hands of their employers has been normalised. They report repeated errors with their pay, which has devastating consequences for low-paid workers living in one of the world’s most expensive cities. UAL has been made aware of this numerous times but continues to shirk its responsibility to this group of staff.

Past leadership of UAL has switched cleaners from multinational company to multinational company. Each company is purely profit-driven and has shown little care for the welfare of its employees. If UAL is serious about taking a moral high ground, it must end the cruel practice of outsourcing and begin to treat cleaners with the dignity and respect they deserve.

The cleaners at UAL are predominantly from black and ethnic minority and migrant backgrounds. The racism inherent in the system of outsourcing is undeniable. In-housing of all workers at UAL is the next urgent step in ensuring justice, safety and equality for all. UAL should follow in the footsteps of many other London universities who have put an end to this immoral practice in recent years such as: Queen Mary, LSE, SOAS, KCL and Goldsmiths. The first step towards this is to cost-up in-housing within the tendering process as the contract with OCS nears its end. This letter-writing campaign demands the end of the university’s exploitative outsourcing of its lowest paid staff across all of its colleges.