Students must show solidarity with our striking teachers if we are to have any hope of a fairer higher education.
Over the last 8 months, the UK has faced a wave of industrial action not seen since the 1970s. Sectors such as transport, postal services, schools, and even the NHS are engaging in mass walkouts. The strikes are a response to real-term pay cuts against the backdrop of spiralling inflation and rising prices. Yet, despite the deepening crisis, negotiations have hardened. This has led some commentators to predict further turbulence in the coming months. To quote Elle Hunt of the Guardian, a ‘new winter of discontent’ looms.
This week has only confirmed her predictions as the University and College Union (UCU) has expanded on its three day walkout from last November, and announced 18 strike dates between now and late March. The UCU comprises 120,000 lecturers, researchers, and administrative staff across 150 universities, including 1600 at Sheffield. Besides its current requests to match wage increases with inflation, the UCU is also engaged in a decade-long dispute over threats to pensions. On top of this, the UCU is committed to eliminating casualisation practices such as zero hours contracts, especially in regard to Black, Asian and ethnic minorities staff who disproportionately suffer from such precarious conditions, the UCU reports.
Unfortunately, this latest extension of strike action impacted many students at a time of vital preparation for the exam period. This is especially true for third year undergraduates, as their final year counts more towards their overall degree, but also true for second years, both of whom will be deprived of full support and facilities. This could mean the difference between passing and failing. While for those without exams (such as myself), the situation may appear less critical, the upcoming months will bring the crucial early stages of the dissertation process. One of my own tutors regrettably pointed out that one dissertation course has been ‘decimated’ by the strikes, with only 1 out of 5 scheduled teaching hours going ahead for that group.
Regardless of the clear impact on the student body, this should not be attributed to the UCU’s decisions and actions. Although they are taking strike action, this has less to do with the recalcitrance of the unions and more to do with a conscious strategy pursued by the government to bolster its slump in the polls. According to YouGov, Rishi Sunak has managed a -18 net approval rating during his first 100 days in office. This is the lowest since records began. Since then, despite him saying the ‘door is always open’ for discussion with healthcare union workers, it seems he has deliberately sabotaged any unions attempts to reach a settlement.
In the rail industry, the government reinserted non-negotiable clauses that compromised the safety of the public into improved agreements reached between the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Union (RMT) and network rail. This meant that the RMT was forced to reject the improved, but still below inflation offer of 7% (in practice a real terms pay cut). The government’s insidious logic pertains to all the strikes: deliberately prolong action until the damage to the public becomes so unbearable that they turn against the unions. Additionally, the unions have also had to grapple with a ‘Labour’ party appearing to emulate the government’s style. Keir Starmer’s obsession with electability – consonant with his assurances to the Confederation of British Industry of further austerity – has come with the edict that no shadow cabinet members are to be seen on the picket lines. Meanwhile, pay for academic staff has decreased in real terms by 19.3% over the last ten years, reports the Independent, with some staff on zero-hour contracts reportedly being forced to use food banks if classes don’t go ahead as reported by The Guardian. An OpenDemocracy survey last year found that on average, university staff now work an extra two days a week unpaid. Teaching assistants are working an average of over 64 hours a week, 26 hours over the legal maximum.
To put it bluntly, the UCU has had no other option than to strike. A lack of political engagement means its members must either accept exploitation and poverty or take industrial action. Although firmly in the same boat, the problem remains that we students lack the organisational capacity to take the same action.
Allow me to speak for all, especially those from a working or lower middle class background, when I say that we also feel the cost of living pinch. The cost of renting student accommodation has risen by 27% in the last six years. Not to mention that many of us are yet to be compensated for a year of lockdown lectures shamefully charged at the full rate. Those repeating a year due to the Covid-19 disruption might bear a further cost to their time and finances.
The problem here is clearly not the employees but the university management. The introduction of tuition fees was designed to incentivise competition and free up government spending on public services. 20 years later, the workers of those public services are striking due to pay cuts. Our vice-chancellor takes home £279,000 a year according to the University’s annual financial report, whilst students foot the bill through extortionate rents and fees paid for a computer screen. Staff and students are two sides of the same coin, but the problem for us is that we lack the option to strike. This means that, however annoying the strikes are, we must get behind the staff in their dispute. If we do not, then we lose the only viable buffer between us and those bent on profiteering from our education. If they can defeat a unionised workforce, just imagine how they would seek to further exploit non-unionised students. Our support will help avert this situation, in terms of both our education and wider society. I am urging students to join the picket lines on the aforementioned dates. Otherwise, it will be us next.
Image credits: Ivan Aleksic via Unsplash