Universities

Academics love nothing more than having a moan about the terrible state of the neo-liberal university. We tend to be slightly less enthusiastic when it comes to getting up from our desks and doing something about it. This has begun to change, however, as pockets of resistance have begun to emerge at several different British universities in the last few years. An excellent discussion among Marxist academics at the 2013 conference of the "Historical Materialism" journal pointed to various different forums in which ‘knowledge workers’ might and should resist privatisation. From building...

On 31 October, Higher Education workers in three unions (UCU, Unite, and Unison) struck against a 1% pay offer. Here, we feature snippets from picket lines around the country. “The consensus from UCU members on the picket line was that there should be a “‘general strike” (their words), by which they meant more coordinated public sector strike action.” University of Northampton “There were around a dozen pickets from all three unions at each of the main entrances to University of East Anglia (UEA) all morning. They were lively despite the showers, and busy, but no-one, or hardly anyone, turned...

University staff are preparing for strike action over pay this autumn after the three biggest campus unions backed campaigns to force up the employers’ offer of just 1%. Lecturers’ union UCU voted for strikes by 61.5 to 38.5% and action short (generally seen as a more effective tactic in the sector) by 77 to 33%. 64% of Unite members backed strikes, and Unison members also did so by a slim margin. Pay has slumped by 13% in real terms since 2009. The higher education sector has an operating surplus of over £1 billion and can well afford to pay up. As a percentage of university budgets pay has...

On the night of Friday 27 September, at least fifteen police officers turned up at Royal Holloway Students’ Union in Surrey, and set about the profiling and searching of students attending a freshers’ week SU night. This included both uniformed cops with tasers and sniffer dogs and, even more bizarrely, undercover police disguised as students. The police had been invited into the student union by a commercial manager; no student or elected student representative authorised their presence or was consulted. The police were particularly targeting black students: an all-too familiar reminder of...

Though universities like UCL [University College London] have an annoying habit of bringing up their place in university rankings, something tells me they won’t be mentioning one particular accolade very often. New halls built for UCL students have just been awarded the Carbuncle Cup , an award given by Building Design magazine to the worst new building. Just to repeat, that’s not “worst new university halls” or even, “worst new block of flats”, but Worst New Building. The magazine has unfavourably compared the new flats with HMP Pentonville, which is on the same street, noting that the...

On Tuesday 16 July, supporters of the 3 Cosas campaign for sick pay, holidays, and pensions equality for outsourced workers at the University of London, were chalking campaign slogans around Bloomsbury to promote a demonstration the following day. Someone (activists suspect that this "someone" was from University of London senior management) saw fit to phone the police, who arrived mob-handed and invaded the Students Union building to violently arrest one activist. (For a video of the arrest, see here for a video of the arrest.) She was taken to Holborn Police Station, where a noisy solidarity...

Workers' Liberty members working at the University of London have launched a new workplace bulletin, The Open Book . It will be produced monthly in editorial meetings open to any University of London worker who wants to get involved. Click here to download the PDF.

Liverpool University has said it will sack 2,800 workers and rehire them on inferior contracts — or sack them if they refuse. Unions representing Liverpool University workers have described this as a “gun to the head”. Jo MacNeill, president-elect of the UCU lecturers’ union at Liverpool University, spoke to Solidarity : Everyone from gardeners to managers is in the firing line — it’s 52% of staff. We think that this attack is a move towards much more of a “business model” for the university, away from it being an academic institution. Industrial relations have broken down. They’re trying to...

A City Hall discussion on possible reforms to the Transport for London pensions scheme provoked an angry response from the Rail, Maritime, and Transport workers union (RMT), which organises workers on London Underground. Some London Assembly Tories want the scheme reformed to bring it in line with the (worse) scheme available to local government workers. A London Assembly budget committee is also discussing possible cuts to the travel pass scheme which currently allows Tube workers to nominate a family member for a free travel pass. The City Hall discussions follow another recent attack, in...

On Wednesday 22 May, around 100 students marched in the middle of exam term to protest at the decision of university management to abolish the University of London Union (ULU). The demonstration was loud and visible, and was boosted by the presence of a solidarity delegation from Sussex University, where activists are involved in a militant struggle against the outsourcing of 235 jobs. Outside Senate House, the marchers heard from speakers including ULU Vice President and Workers’ Liberty member, Daniel Cooper, ULU President Michael Chessum, the incoming ULU Women’s Office, Susuana Antubam...