Immigrant Workers Arrested at Olympic Site

Posted on | December 8, 2009 | 3 Comments

The UK Borders Agency (UKBA) has arrested more than 90 people employed at the Olympic construction site between April and November this year.  23 of those workers have been forced to leave the country.  Profit is the priority for the private companies involved, at the expense of the rights of workers.

As the 2012 Olympic Games approaches, rights of workers employed in the construction of facilities for the event are being denied in favour of construction deadlines.  In December it was announced that 93 people were known to have been arrested at the site by UKBA.  Workers on the site are subjected to harassment by immigration officials.  23 of the workers who were arrested have since been forcibly removed from the country.

Officers from the UKBA are permanently based at the Olympic construction site to police those working there.  The presence of immigration officials on site makes detention and deportation a clear threat for workers.  Like many other workplaces, this policing is done in co-operation with the contractors.    Immigration laws are increasingly being used to control workers.  Earlier this year, police arrested cleaners at the University of London after they had successfully organised for higher wages.  Many of those employed at the Olympic site have been organising for safe and fair working conditions.  We demand an end to this criminalisation of workers.

According to the International Olympic Committee, a fundamental value of the Olympics is the ‘preservation of human dignity’. But the criminalisation of workers at the Olympic site is a blatant contradiction of this.  We demand that all workers on the Olympic site be treated with dignity and we will support them however they choose to achieve this demand.

No one is illegal
Stop the deportations
Stop the criminalisation of workers

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