UK students

Student activism in the UK and the NUS. See also UCU.

UCU dispute: build the next stages

With terms drawing to a close in mid-December, university campuses are becoming much quieter places, and will remain so until early-mid January. Whilst taking much-needed respite following the end of a busy term and kicking off industrial action, University and College Union (UCU) activists and supporters now have ideal opportunities to build our actions into next term. There are five clear things activists should focus on: recruiting to the union; mobilising members to take part in “action short of a strike” (ASOS) and join next term’s pickets; getting more branches out; building solidarity...

Strong student backing for university strikes

University staff walked out for three days on 1-3 December as national disputes kicked off over pensions, pay and conditions. Fifty-eight universities are taking action: some over proposed cuts to the USS pension scheme, some over the national claim on pay, workload, equalities and casualisation, and some in both disputes. The cuts to pensions would see a typical member facing a thirty-six per cent cut to guaranteed pension provision, while pay has fallen by 20% in real terms over the past twelve years thanks to below-inflation pay rises. Many casualised staff shared stories of precarious...

AWL bulletin for the UCU strikes, 1-3 December 2021

AWL Higher Education workers fraction have produced this bulletin for the UCU strikes on 1-3 December 2021. Please download and read - and distribute if you agree! Let us know what you think - email awl@workersliberty.org . We have members in UCU and Unison and hold regular meetings to discuss building a democratic, fighting rank and file across campus unions.

Students organise Uyghur solidarity

Students in the Uyghur Solidarity Society at SOAS university in London are running a week of action (11-15 October), calling on students and workers to join in on their respective campuses. Awareness has been growing among young people especially through online activism. This week aims to turn that awareness into concrete action, to reach out to others in the university community, and carry out public protests to draw attention to and put pressure on those complicit in the genocide. On Monday 11 October, we held a stall outside campus with leaflets explaining our society’s analysis of the...

University workers fight for jobs and conditions

On 4-5 October, workers at the Royal College of Art struck in support of their long running campaign against casualised working conditions. 90% of staff are employed on “zero hours” and other forms of insecure contracts — the highest percentage of such employment in UK Higher Education. Strikes are scheduled for the next three weeks . RCA strikers will take heart from the important recent win at Open University, where 4,000 Associate Lecturers won significant improvements in their (fixed-term) contracts, including a pay rise and payments for all work. At Goldsmiths in south London, staff are...

Sheffield Archaeology: a cut with a "global impact"

A student involved with the Sheffield University Save Archaeology Campaign spoke to us. Back in February, a few students were emailed, asking us to attend an “informal chat” with the Deputy Vice Chancellor. Only a few of us were chosen and around a dozen or more of us turned up. She asked us for negative views as well as positive views about the department – she only received positive views. At a follow-up meeting, the Deputy VC laid out the conclusions from this “consultation”: they would close the Department of Archaeology and move two of its “areas of strength” into other departments. These...

Pimlico Academy: near a tipping point

On 8 June, National Education Union (NEU) members at Pimlico Academy (London) held their first strike day. A sunny Tuesday morning saw a strong turnout from members, with the picket line stretching all the way down the road. Workers carried placards with slogans including: “kick racism out of school...

Move on from “30% refund”

Students United Against Fees is one group within a loose coalition of student activist groups operating under lockdown and protesting under lockdown. It called a small but lively open-air rally in London on Sunday 13 June. The group calls for a 30% immediate refund on tuition fees in return for higher interest rates on loans. The refund is compensation for loss of in-person lectures, library and other student facilities as well as exorbitant rents. The group, led by a handful of full-time elected officers from Student Unions, got some press coverage for their idea last month. It is fair to say...

Students mobilise on Palestine

The student union at SOAS university in London joined the Palestinian call for a strike on 18 May, and finished the week with a campus vigil for lives lost to colonial violence. London students went on to join the internationalist bloc at the Palestine demo in London on Saturday, connecting struggles from Colombia, Ethiopia and Palestine as a common struggle against oppression and state violence. Apartheid off Campus, a student campaign group, has called a day of action for Friday 28 May: “a call for students to unite for BDS”. The student union at SOAS university in London voted to reaffirm...

Make solidarity without antisemitism

Many students at UK universities have rightly responded to the escalation of violence in Israel-Palestine by mobilising in support of the Palestinians. In some places there are campaigns to get universities to stop investing in companies that financially back Israeli military industries. We hope Palestinian solidarity campaigning continues beyond the ceasefire, and that university divestment campaigns succeed. At the same time we continue to criticise the blanket boycott policies which dominate on campuses (including academic boycotts), with their implicit backing for a “one state” outcome in...

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