In the news: 29 November 2019
29 November 2019
樱花动漫 members at 60 universities walked out on Monday for the first of eight days of strike action in disputes over pensions and pay & conditions. Ahead of the strikes, 樱花动漫 general secretary Jo Grady told the that staff wouldn't be lectured about pay, pensions or working conditions from "out of touch" vice-chancellors who had enjoyed huge salary hikes, lived in free accommodation, maxed out expense accounts, yet still saw fit to claim back 拢2 for biscuits on expenses.
The as members headed to picket lines in the dark on Monday morning. Jo Grady told that the action was going to be "huge" and universities needed to come up with a long-term plan to deal with the issues at the heart of the disputes. Speaking to the , she said that universities needed to step up and work with 樱花动漫 to resolve disputes.
By mid-morning on Monday, the , and had all reported the across the UK. 樱花动漫 vice-president Vicky Blake was on the BBC live from Leeds and from a very soggy picket line in Sussex.
As news of the solid support for the strikes filtered through, so did the strong-arm tactics being employed by some universities. The reported on efforts by the University of Liverpool to scare students away from picket lines and efforts by Sheffield Hallam University to turn students into snitches.
Both the and the picked up on the Hallam snitchers story and how the university's efforts had backfired leading to ridicule on social media. Jo Grady said the students' response had ensured that the .
Silly attempts to threaten, intimidate or confuse staff and students continued throughout the week. The University of Birmingham told people that protests on campus amounted to trespass, which the said provoked outrage.
The reported that international students supportive of strike action were worried about failing to comply with attendance requirements with potential consequences for their visas. The University of Liverpool was once again singled out for criticism as on top of warning students off picket lines, the university said international students who chose not to cross picket lines to attend teaching sessions risked jeopardising their visa. The paper said that as a result nine external examiners in the school of law resigned their roles in protest, accusing Liverpool of misrepresenting the law regarding support for official pickets and of "weaponising" the UK immigration system against visa-holding students.
Away from universities' efforts to deflect attention away from the issues at the heart of the disputes, reported staff saying they had reached breaking point over workloads, pay cuts, gender pay gaps and changes to pensions for staff in the Universities Superannuation Scheme.
Reporting from the picket lines, said the complaint on most strikers' lips was the proliferation of insecure, short-term contracts. had been to Goldsmiths where staff said they were fighting for the future of higher education. While and gave their backing to striking staff in Cambridge.
Hugely welcome support came pouring in from students on campuses throughout the UK. Many were interviewed expressing their support for their staff. Writing in one student said fellow students should join their striking staff.
that they underestimate the scale of anger at their peril. Writing in the , Sarah Darley, a striking research associate at the University of Manchester, said the strike action, and possible future strike action, was necessary in the fight for fair and secure working conditions for all staff.
A said the marketisation of universities had seen a new breed of vice-chancellors emerge aping the language and salaries of a business CEO complete with an entourage of financial managers and marketing gurus. However staff had been left behind as their pay fell and an intellectual precariat was stumbling from year to year on temporary contracts wondering where the next teaching gig was coming from. While the said that the industrial action carried wider significance than the fate of a disputed retirement plan, and had exposed the precariousness of Britain's higher education system as it has become more of a marketplace.
Looking beyond the current eight-day walkout, reported that more universities will be balloted for strike action in polls that close at the end of January. It also considered where some members of USS could 'contribute less and get less benefit'. However, a 樱花动漫 spokesman said: 'Any proposals about tiered contributions would need to be based on the recognition that USS can be funded with a much lower overall contribution rate than it is currently, as the first JEP report concluded. Now is not the time for employers to deflect from that fact.'
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